can you explain uh the ,
can you tell me , what is the degree
that um political actors within Kirkuk ,
uh kurdish political actors are taking
their direction uh from the KdP and
puk party leaders , what we see
is the governor is very neutral . He
does not take any of his direction from
the Krg whether puk or KdP side .
Now , obviously you met regularly ,
who's the provincial council chairman ,
that is a puk and take some direction
from the puk and the Korg , but we
see that balance working out pretty
well . The governor is , is very good
to be very objective instead of
subjective , and we have found that to
be very good as he leads the provincial
government to Some type of resolution ,
would hope an Article 23 and then
eventually won 40 , but , but we , we
we see different provincial council
members , whether they're arab Turkmen ,
they do have their sides of the story
and they have a very good I o theme ,
but I will tell you , I have a lot of
faith in the governor and and he is
very neutral when it comes to the Korg
puk KdP , may I ask ,
uh since that provincial council was
seated in the last set of elections ,
um what kinds of changes are you
beginning to see as elections for the
Korg provinces have been announced and
the campaigns are underway . Yeah ,
we we did not have provincial elections
last time , we were the province that
did not because Article 23 has not been
resolved . So , once again , the
majority of our provincial council has
been seated since 2003 08 . Uh so we
don't see much of the uh jockeying for
positions as we see both in India and
Diyala , and as you very well known
prior to the General Nixon recently ,
uh some , some issues going on uh with
seating of kurds in some of those uh
folks feeling left out , but with the
Krg elections right now , we don't see
much john King , They're set to happen
on 25 July and uh we look for a
pretty smooth , smooth election , but
we don't see any influence on the
provincial council on those elections
at this time . Can you describe without
compromising your operations , what
kind of uh security plans ? Uh you are
beginning to help uh , the Iraqi
security forces with um and the
Peshmerga forces with for the upcoming
election . Um ,
Ma'am , uh when we met General casslyn
and myself met with Prime Minister
Barzani probably a month ago , he asked
that we provide some support , I'm not
sure what that support is going to be
as of yet . He hasn't come back to
General casslyn and obviously it would
be approved by General Odierno ,
General Kobe then down through General
Qassem to us , but it may be as simple
as information sharing observation
from is our platforms or , you know ,
something as simple as that . I don't
think it's going to require uh
coalition forces at polling sites and
things of that nature , so I think it
should be pretty minimal and things
that we can track , but I would say
it's probably gonna be mostly
information sharing and I s are
platforms and things of that nature ,
man . I'm you mentioned uh
earlier that uh of course in Kirkuk ,
you are not now seeing some of the same
kinds of the political competitions
that are ongoing in nova and develop .
Can you describe how the
changing political dynamics in Ninawa
ntl Auntie Ella have affected
your operations and the political
environment within Kirkuk ? That's a
great question because what we're
seeing up in Ninawa is uh recently last
week uh the newly elected governor was
gonna go to a soccer game uh and it was
just north of the city . He had a
dispute with one of the Peshmerga
individuals there at a checkpoint and
the escalations raised to where they
had a cancer , the soccer game and
general Qassem went up to kind of
diffuse that situation the same thing
right now , we've got a combined
operation in Iowa with Peshmerga and I
a and we see some displacements
of violent extremists up in here today .
We had a V bed or a suicide V bed . And
then yesterday we had another view
based , so we're seeing some of the
violent stream is coming into Kirk cook
that we haven't seen in a while
conducting those types of attacks that
we see in baquba and Mosul . So that
has had an impact on us operationally
from a military perspective from a
political perspective , we see that
not only are the kurd arab tensions
here , they're starting to raise up in
Ninawa as as well as the island
province . So it's all along that fault
line . Now we see this tension
rising daily , not to a level that we
can control , but I think it was
isolated in Kirkuk province and now
it's kind of spreading all over based
on some of the results of the political
leaders who have been emplaced . You
spoke about enemy groups coming into
the area , can you tell me what enemy
groups you're actually encountering ?
Um Okay , Let's begin with that one .
Yeah . Right now , obviously the
influence is still here . Uh and that's
what we think the results of the
debates that we saw in the 1st 1st 2
rounds of attacks in March and april .
And then the one that that happened
last night and today we believe our but
also we have a second set here . And
that's the J . R . TN . And we talked
about this a couple of months ago , the
Naqshbandi , some of the extremists
funded through Syria through Al Douri
and his network , some of the former
baathists , We we see , you know ,
anywhere from 2 to 400 of those
elements here within the province . And
uh we're seeing attacks from those
individuals . Now we are collecting on
those cells and acting on those cells
and capturing uh some of those elements .
But it takes it takes a while to get
into the cell networks and neutralize
those cell networks . So those are the
two primary elements that we see here
in Cook . If they're still on
charleston uh in Kirkuk ?
Say again please . Is there still Ansar
al Sunna operating in Kirkuk ? Oh
yes ma'am . And I see as well . Too
many other elements but small in nature
um that we collect
on work with our Iraqi security forces ,
both our intelligence and acting on
those . But like you said , the two
that were really focusing on right now ,
are you ? I'm not sure bonding . Can
you tell me what the differences are in
the aims and methods of the sky and
Naqshbandi fighters that you encounter ?
McShay Bondi is is more of a small
local attacks that we're seeing
both on coalition and I S .
F . And the U . I . R . More of the
high visibility , high profile V bid as
fast uh trying to incite
violence and mostly targeting our Iraqi
security force brothers . Uh Most of
these beds have been on the either
there are police , the emergency
response unit or the E . S . U . As of
today , killing uh five members of
their their force . So J . R TN knocks
the body kind of targeting both Sf and
coalition and then targeting
Sf . Why do you think
if you can speculate or give us some
evidence that uh the Naqshbandi are so
active uh in Kirkuk right now .
Well , I think they're active in Kirkuk
based on the fact that they get funding
from Syria ,
who is Asia , which is just south of
Kirkuk city , is predominantly Sunni .
A lot of former baths . Were there a
lot of the old generals from the old
regime resided there , So it has an
influence and it has a population that
can be uh recruited in order
to join their organization . So we feel
that the populations there , the former
baathists , they feel loyal to that
particular party and they have they
have the means in which to recruit and
have people attack us .