An invisible hand appears to be at work in Iraqi Kurdistan, writes Stefan Smith, in Sulaymaniya. The CIA is plotting the course for an invasion.
Iraqi Kurdistan's airstrips are ready, cars with blackened windows are moving around at night and small teams are busy checking potential targets and bases.
The Kurdish enclave, situated just to the north of the Iraqi government-controlled and oil-rich cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, is expected to be a key US launch-pad for an attack against Saddam Hussein.
And the indications are that CIA teams are already making progress in Washington's reported battle plan for a two-pronged invasion that would secure Iraq's oil fields and close in on Baghdad.
The discreet preparations in Iraqi Kurdistan may be the opposite of the well-publicised manoeuvres in the Kuwaiti desert, but they have nevertheless set local tongues wagging, with a wealth of rumours of transport planes landing and missiles being installed, and reinforced convictions that war is just a few weeks away.
While few officials from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) - the two main factions running the enclave since it was declared off-limits to Baghdad in 1991 - are prepared to discuss their co-operation with Washington, some have privately given indications of preparations for an attack from the north.
One PUK source said a CIA team had visited his faction's front line with a shadowy hardline Islamist group, Ansar al-Islam (Supporters of Islam), which the PUK accuses of being a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda terror chief Osama bin Laden.
Teams have also visited Iraqi government positions, in missions likely to be aimed at identifying targets for air strikes. Sources in the PUK and KDP have also revealed that Washington has requested airstrips near Iraqi Kurdistan's three main cities - Arbil, Dohuk and Sulaymaniya - to be readied for use by mid-February. The renovation of the airstrips has been completed, with holes patched and the Tarmac cleaned with compressed-air hoses, and the areas are now heavily guarded and off-limits.
Residents whose homes overlook Sulaymaniya's airstrip, at Bakrajo to the west of the city, say there has been increased activity there but stated categorically that as of yet no planes or helicopters have landed, contrary to local rumours of night landings of C-130 military transport planes.
Analysts say the picture that emerges is that US intelligence teams are following the same pattern as they did in Afghanistan post-September 11th, 2001 - putting CIA planners and special forces spotters on the ground and laying the groundwork for a rapid, large-scale military deployment when the orders are given.
The editor of the Hawlati weekly, the enclave's biggest-selling newspaper, said he had yet to be convinced that anything was taking place except logisitical preparations by small teams of US military and intelligence personnel - contrary to speculation that a large US military build-up has already started on Iraqi soil.
"There are different reports, but a lot of them are simply rumours. In actual fact, the number of Americans here appears to be limited - they are small teams, collecting information, checking sites and preparing for more to follow," said Asos Hardi.
"There are arrangements taking place. The airports have been prepared, for example. But these arrangements make people talk: some people say the Americans have installed Patriot missiles, some say transport planes have been landing. But mostly it's rumours," said Hardi, who has some 40 local journalists working across the autonomous zone.
One local political leader here, Mohammad Hadji Mahmud of the small Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party, was quoted by the Iranian news agency IRNA as saying that between 700 and 1,000 US troops were in northern Iraq, with some 50 more arriving each day.
But while those more likely to be in the know will only say "several hundred" when asked to put a figure to the US presence, the consensus is that within a month they will not be so well hidden. - (AFP)