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Kurdish leaders have decided to deploy their own militias in the current fighting in Baghdad where government troops aided by U.S. forces have launched yet another campaign to secure the restive city.
Kurdish militias have not yet arrived in Baghdad but sources said their deployment was expected to coincide with the stationing of at least 20,000 more U.S. troops in the city.
It will be the first time for Kurdish armed groups to fight in Baghdad and specifically against their co-religionists, Arab Muslim Sunnis. The majority Kurds are Sunni Muslims.
In a sectarian-tainted city like Baghdad it will be hard to see whether the Kurds will put up a fight amid religious decrees from top Iraqi Sunni clerics, many of who are Kurds, banning taking arms against the resistance and denouncing U.S. troops and the Iraqi government.
The Mahdi Army itself is a sworn enemy of the Kurdish Peshmerga militias and is currently spearheading resistance of Kurdish moves to annex the oil-rich city of Kirkuk to their autonomous region.
