Dozens killed as US special forces overrun 'terrorist' camps

US special forces working with Kurdish militia have over-run the base camps of Ansar al-Islam, a small Kurdish Islamic group which achieved sudden notoriety when the US administration claimed it was linked both to al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein.

About 100 US Special Forces and 6,000 Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) peshmerga started their attack last Friday against an Ansar force of 700, which for several years has occupied a narrow wedge of hills between the eastern Kurdish city of Halabja and the Iranian border.

Barham Salih, the prime minister of PUK-controlled eastern Kurdistan, said: "It was a very tough battle. You're talking about a bunch of terrorists who are very well-trained and well-equipped." He said 17 of his men and up to 150 Ansar militants were killed.

Ansar has been a thorn in the side of the PUK government, fiercely defending its handful of villages close to the border with Iran, but in Kurdish politics it was a small player.

It came to international attention when Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, claimed before the UN Security Council that Ansar had connections simultaneously to al-Qa'ida and Baghdad. But it was always an unlikely alliance.

General Powell said an al-Qa'ida member called Abu Musab Zarqawi had established a "poison and explosive training factory" on Ansar territory. He also said the Iraqi government had "an agent in the most senior levels of Ansar".

The claim that Ansar was linked to al-Qa'ida was encouraged by the PUK, which wanted to get rid of a local irritant, and could point to some 100 Arabs within the group who had previously been in Afghanistan. But Mr Salih said Ansar had no link to Baghdad because the Iraqi Arabs with the group were clearly anti-Saddam Hussein.

In the few villages it held, Ansar had instituted an Islamic regime similar to that of the Taliban in Afghanistan where television, dancing, girls' schools and women appearing without a veil were prohibited. There was little firm evidence, however, that Ansar was connected to al Qa'ida.

The site alleged to have been the poison factory turned out to be controlled by another Islamic group.

Mullah Krekar, the leader of Ansar, in exile in Norway, denied any link with President Saddam, whom he frequently denounced. "As a Kurdish man I believe he is our enemy," he said. He also denied that a senior Ansar Iraqi Arab commander called Abu Wa'el was linked to Iraqi intelligence, describing him as "a toothless diabetic, too old feeble to harm anyone".

Ansar could not have survived without Iranian support, probably channelled through the Revolutionary Guards just across the Iranian border. In recent months, however, aid has been reduced or cut off because Iran fears complications with the US.

In an authoritative report on Ansar published earlier in the year, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said prophetically: "Should Ansar lose its Iranian sponsor, it would be deprived of its critical fall-back area across the border, and in the face of concerted PUK assault, possibly with US assistance, it would not be likely to survive as a visible fighting force."

Meanwhile on the front line north of Kirkuk, Iraqi forces have fallen back seven or eight miles to a ridge defending the city. The withdrawal, completed over the weekend, was carefully planned and retreating troops left nothing in their bunkers. Troops to the east of Kirkuk also pulled back to less exposed positions nearer the city.