Blood and purpose

By now I'm sure you've all heard about the horrific twin suicide bombings that killed nearly 70 people and injured 270 more at the offices of the main Kurdish parties in Irbil in northern Iraq.

The nearly simultaneous blasts occurred while the offices were jammed with people celebrating the start of a major Muslim holiday called Eid-al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice. Both of the major Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), were hit. Several senior figures of the provisional government were among the dead. The BBC reporter said the Irbil morgue was so full that the dead were lying under covers in bloodstained corridors.

I haven't commented on it before now because I've been trying to think of, if I can put it so coldly, what the point was.

Kurdish officials have put the blame on a Muslim militant group called Ansar al-Islam for the attacks; US and Kurdish officials both claim the group is allied with al-Qaeda. It was driven out of the region during the war but has apparently resurfaced.

Assuming the al-Qaeda connection is true, and assuming we're talking about al-Qaeda as an actual network rather than as a brand name, I've been trying to puzzle out the rationale. It seems to me that al-Qaeda always acts with purpose. Unlike, for example, Hamas, which seems to simply pick targets of opportunity to see how much damage, blood, and panic it can produce, al-Qaeda has seemed to have a greater - that is, broader - intent for each attack. The intent may be symbolic, but it's there. In fact, I maintain September 11 fits that pattern: The targets chosen were the biggest symbols of economic America (the World Trade Center), military America (the Pentagon), and political America (assuming the generally accepted notion that the White House was the intended target for the fourth plane, although the other possibility, the Capitol, would serve equally well).

So if this was, in essence, an al-Qaeda attack, what was the broader intent? Yes, the Kurdish parties are allied with the US and yes that could make them a target, but is there more?

If the murders were "simply" targeted at a US ally, it would seem an odd time. Relations between the US and the Kurds are becoming strained as the US increasingly denies it ever promised the Kurds anything in exchange for their support against Saddam even as the Kurds are increasingly insisting on considerable autonomy within an Iraqi federation. Why do something that is more likely to drive your enemies closer together than further apart?

But if that's not the reason, what is? Perhaps I just mentioned it: autonomy. An attack taking out a significant part of the leadership structure of the Kurds could undermine the drive for autonomy, or at least disrupt it long enough for the idea to fail to become part of an Iraqi constitution. And a unified Iraq stands a much greater chance of being dominated by radical Islamic fundamentalists than a federated one.

I realize I'm going out on a limb here, but bottom line is that I suspect the purpose of the attacks was not to punish the Kurds for being allied with the US but to punish them for wanting autonomy.

That said, remember this was premised on accepting that this was at least indirectly an al-Qaeda job. Now I'm going to go so far out on a limb that it no longer deserves the name. Twig is more apt. I'm going to suggest another possibility. There is another player here, a player that is bitterly opposed to Kurdish autonomy. A player that has in the past given support to a radical Islamic group (Hizbullah) that engaged in murders of Kurds. A player that has expressed a willingness to use force to prevent Kurdish autonomy. A player, that is, whose history and words are in line with the events in Irbil.

That player is Turkey.

Does that mean I think Turkey is behind the attacks, or rather behind Ansar al-Islam? No, to say that I think it would be going too far. But do I believe it is in the range of possibility? Yes, I do.

Update: The death toll now stands at 109. And AP reports that

[o]n Wednesday, an Iraqi insurgent group, the "Jaish Ansar al-Sunna," claimed responsibility for the bombings. It said it targeted the "dens of the devils" because of the parties' ties to the United States. The claim could not be independently confirmed. ...

The name of the organization was included among a dozen insurgent groups that issued a joint statement this week in Ramadi and Fallujah - part of the Sunni Triangle stronghold of Saddam Hussein loyalists - warning Iraqis against cooperating with the U.S.-led occupation.

So all bets could be off. This could have been the work of another clutch of nutcases just wanting to see how much carnage they can cause with no actual strategic intent to speak of. On the other hand, if my thoughts were all wet, so were those of the Kurds and the US. And I very much doubt that the specter of a whole passel of tiny, murder-prone splinter groups rather than one large organization is one that brings any comfort to US planners.