Mosul governor talks tough on Kurdish militias (News Feature)

By dpa correspondents Jun 21, 2009, 12:48 GMT

Mosul, Iraq - Athil al-Najifi, the Arab nationalist governor of Iraq's restive Nineveh province, is striking an uncompromising tone on thorny relations with Kurds in the provincial capital, Mosul.

In an exclusive interview with the German Press Agency dpa, al- Najifi, who led the Sunni Hadba Coalition to victory in January's provincial council elections on a platform of regaining control from Kurdish parties, said he expected Iraqi Kurdish parties 'to come to grips with the changed situation' after his coalition's victory and the US withdrawal from the city.

'The Kurds have no doubt that the situation in Mosul ... has changed,' al-Najifi told dpa Saturday, 10 days before the scheduled withdrawal. 'They will come to grips with the changed situation.

'I expect that the Kurds will withdraw from the city and there will be a single security force in the city, with not a single Kurd or (Kurdish) Peshmerga (militiaman) in it,' he said. 'Iraqi security forces will be able to control the city without the need for any other force.'

Nineveh is home to a patchwork of religious and ethnic minorities, but is primarily divided between Kurds, especially in the north and east of the province, and Sunni Arabs, especially in the south and west of the province.

The province, and Mosul in particular, remain among the most dangerous areas in Iraq. Despite successive security pushes that police say have netted hundreds of suspected insurgents, armed groups continue to launch near-daily attacks, with deadly effect.

On Saturday, an off-duty police officer and his mother were gunned down in a market in the west of Mosul. In the east of the city, an ethnic Kurdish woman was fatally shot in the street. Her sister, who had been walking next to her, was seriously wounded, police said.

When, as recently as March, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was still saying that he might ask US forces to remain in Iraq's most dangerous urban areas, Kurdish politicians in Mosul called for the continued presence of US soldiers in Mosul.

'It is necessary for US forces to stay in Nineveh, since the greatest challenge Iraqi security forces face is in Mosul,' Khasro Goran, deputy governor of Nineveh and the leader of the Kurdish Fraternal List, told dpa at the time.

Since then, al-Maliki's government has indicated that it expects US soldiers' withdrawal from Iraqi cities to be complete. On Saturday, he hailed that withdrawal as a 'great victory' for Iraq.

Al-Najifi, in the dpa interview, said 'I have had assurances from Deputy Interior Minister Adnan al-Assadi that the ministries of interior and defence will be in charge of the security file in the city of Mosul after the withdrawal of US troops at the end of the month.

'In reference to the Peshmergas, he told me that no militias will be allowed in the city,' he said.

Sunni politicians in the area have accused former Peshmerga fighters now working for the Kurdish secret police of fomenting strife in the province in a bid to get US forces, seen as more sympathetic to the Kurds, to stay.

Kurdish politicians counter that the Baath Party continues to operate in Mosul - albeit wearing 'different masks,' as member of parliament Saadi al-Barazanji recently put it in an interview with