Kurdish security forces have seized scores of minority Arabs and Turkmens in Kirkuk and secretly transferred them in violation of Iraqi law to prisons in Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Iraq, US officials said on Wednesday.
The prisoners have been captured in operations by Kurdish intelligence agents and a Kurdish-led unit of the Kirkuk Police Department, sometimes with the support of US forces in the region, the officials said. The Kurds maintain broad autonomy in northern Iraq, and their intelligence agents are fiercely independent of Iraq's fledgling national intelligence service.
US military and State Department officials, while condemning the transfers, said US troops had not been involved with them, and when made aware of the practice, had sought to stop it.
"We have had serious and credible information about allegations of extrajudicial conduct, both arrests and detentions of individuals in the northern areas of Iraq," a state department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said on Wednesday at the department's daily news briefing.
"Our coalition forces, according to every report that I have, not only were not involved in these activities, but in fact raised their concerns about the fact that they had serious and credible reports that those activities were taking place," he said.
The allegations are contained in a confidential nine-page State Department cable, dated June 5.
Kirkuk has emerged as a tinderbox for Iraq's major ethnic and sectarian groups, and is considered the most politically volatile city.
Since the fall of former president Saddam Hussein, the Kurds have wrested control from Sunni Arabs and Turkmens of virtually every major government institution in Kirkuk, including the police. They have further consolidated their power by getting a huge turnout in the area during the elections and securing almost two-thirds of the seats in the provincial council.
Minority politicians have accused Kurdish leaders of using intimidation to exercise their authority.
The secret transfers of prisoners pose a potential political problem for the Bush administration, which is perceived to be a strong supporter of the Kurdish leaders.
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