CAIRO, June 15, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) - A secret American memo revealed that Kurdish forces have abducted hundreds of Iraqi Arabs and Turkmen in oil-rich Kirkuk and sent them to secret prisons in northern Iraq, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, June 15.

"Turkmen in Kirkuk tell us they perceive a US tolerance for the practice while Arabs in Kirkuk believe Coalition Forces are directly responsible," said a confidential State Department memo addressed to the White House, Pentagon and US Embassy in Baghdad.

The nine-page document, dated June 5, said such operations occurred "without authority of local courts or the knowledge of Ministries of Interior or Defense in Baghdad".

It maintained that the "extra-judicial detentions" were part of a "concerted and widespread initiative" by Kurdish political parties "to exercise authority in Kirkuk in an increasingly provocative manner".

The abductees, including merchants, businessmen, members of tribal families and Arab soldiers, and in one case, an 87-year-old farmer with diabetes, have often remained missing for months.

They have been transferred secretly and in violation of Iraqi law to prisons in the Kurdish cities of Irbil and Sulaymaniyah, sometimes with the knowledge of US forces, according to the daily.

Quoting US and Iraqi officials, government documents and families of the victims, the paper said the men were seized off the streets of the intensely volatile city in joint US-Iraqi raids.

The memo said the abductions have "greatly exacerbated tensions along purely ethnic lines" and endangered US credibility.

Kirkuk, a city of almost 1 million, is home to Iraq's most combustible mix of politics and economic power.

It ethnic mix of Kurds, Arabs, ethnic Turkmen and a range of other minorities ranging from Christians to Jews and Assyrians makes Kirkuk a tinderbox.

"The Americans are with the Kurds, together. They're walking along the same path," said Abu Abdullah Jabbouri, a former fighter pilot released last week from the prison in Irbil. "What can we do?"

He said he was seized during a raid on his house the night of April 30 in the Kirkuk neighborhood of Rashid.

Jabbouri, now serving as a colonel in the Iraqi Interior Ministry, pleaded with the Iraqi police and their US colleagues that he had been wrongly targeted.

He stressed that the Americans, dressed in civilian clothes and flak jackets, ignored him.

The memo said US commanders had denied complicity in such practices, adding that the 116th Brigade Combat Team, which oversees security in Kirkuk, had urged Kurdish officials to end the practice.

"I can tell you that the coalition forces absolutely do not condone it," Brig. Gen. Alan Gayhart, the brigade commander, told The Post.

However, Jalal Jawhar, who heads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Kirkuk, said some suspects were transferred to prisons in Irbil and Sulaymaniyah with the "complete cooperation" of the US military.

US and Iraqi officials, along with the memo, said the abduction campaign was being orchestrated and carried out by the Kurdish intelligence agency, known as Asayesh, and the 500-member Kurdish-led Emergency Services Unit in the Kirkuk police force.

Both are closely allied with the US military, the Post said.

The Post said the abduction campaign has deepened a climate of fear and intimidation in Kirkuk.

Describing the abductions as "political kidnappings," Gen. Turhan Yusuf Abdel-Rahman, the chief of Kirkuk's police force, said at least four Arabs and one Turkmen were seized last week.

On Sunday, the US military received reports that nine more Arabs and Turkmens were missing, said the daily.

Abdel-Rahman, himself a Turkman, said his officers were taking part in the majority of the abductions despite his attempts to stop the practice.

He said 40 percent of Kirkuk's 6,120-member police force was loyal to the two Kurdish political parties.

Acting on the parties' orders, uniformed officers carried out the abductions using the police department's cars and pickup trucks, said Abdel-Rahman.