Kurdish Gen.: Brigade Trains for Baghdad

Above: Kurdish Army forces. The Kurds and Sunnis have a long-standing ethnic enmity, and each claim ownership of oil-rich Kirkuk. In 2004 Kurdish President Barzani offered to send 30,000 fighters to clean out Sunni Fallujah.

KIRKUK, Iraq -- An Iraqi army brigade based in the northern Kurdish region is undergoing intensive training in urban combat and will be dispatched to Baghdad as part of a new joint U.S.-Iraqi security drive in the sprawling and violence-ridden city, the commander said Saturday.

The brigade is one of two coming from the Kurdish region and a third brigade will come from southern Iraq. The second Kurdish brigade will come from the northern city of Sulaimaniyah.

"We will head to Baghdad soon. We have 3,000 soldiers who are currently undergoing intensive training especially in urban combat and how the army should act inside a city," said Brig. Gen. Nazir Assem Korran, commander of the 1st Infantry Brigade, 2nd Division of the Iraqi army that is based in the city of Irbil.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

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