Crushing the Kurds

The Zagros Mountains of Eastern Iraq reverberated last week with the thud of bombs and tank shells as Iraqi troops moved forcefully against Kurdish dissidents dug in on the snow-covered slopes. The heaviest fighting yet in a rebellion that has dragged on for nearly two decades was startling but expectable. Iraq was finally able to move against the Kurds after patching up relations with Iran, which for years had provided the Kurds with the means to withstand Baghdad's most determined attempts to dislodge them.

The Iraq-Iran reconciliation took place two weeks ago in Algiers at the summit meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Shortly before that conference ended, Algerian President Houari Boumedienne dramatically announced that the two neighbors had agreed to settle "problems" that had made them bitter enemies for almost half a century. As the OPEC delegates cheered wildly, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and Iraqi Strongman Saddam Hussein Takriti embraced each other.

Refugees. Saddam Hussein apparently got the best of the brotherly arrangement. Iran and Iraq agreed to begin negotiations this week in Tehran that will revise--in Iran's favor--long-disputed land and water boundaries, notably along the river known as the Shatt al-Arab. The two countries also agreed that they would no longer help "provocative elements," a scarcely disguised reference to the Kurdish dissidents who, with Iran's backing, have fought the Baghdad government for 17 years.

The Kurds, an estimated 100,000 of whom are fighting under longtime Leader Mulla Mustafa Barzani, 76, are a non-Arab Moslem nation of mountain people whose ancient homeland covers parts of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria and the Soviet Union. Iran has successfully integrated 650,000 of its own Kurds. Baghdad has promised the Kurds autonomy and proportionate representation in Iraq's Arab, socialist government. But Barzani has held out for independence, and since 1958, his forces have been sniping at the Iraqi army from mountain redoubts near the Iranian border.

Over the years, Iran has given the Kurds several hundred million dollars' worth of military equipment as well as spending $100 million a year to care for 100,000 Kurdish refugees from Iraq. With that aid cut off--even Tehran newspapers last week eliminated all mention of the Kurds--the situation looked desperate for the Kurds. They were attacked by waves of Soviet-supplied Tupolev bombers and T-62 tanks; Baghdad jubilantly reported hundreds of rebels killed. Kurdish spokesmen insisted that Barzani's forces had shot down two Iraqi jets, destroyed six tanks and had killed 300 Iraqi soldiers.

Apparently the Shah did not anticipate that the Iraqis would move against the Kurdish rebels with such haste and ferocity. At week's end Iraq, at Iran's request, declared a two-week cease-fire to allow dissident Kurds to leave the country. After that, Baghdad vowed, it would use every military force to crush the rebellion once and for all.

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