By and large, it seems like it's been something of a cakewalk for the Kurdish forces.
The bombed dwellings outside Mosul were under the protection of Kurdish forces.
KIRKUK, Iraq (CNN) -- A battalion from the 173rd Airborne Brigade has reinforced U.S. troops and Kurdish forces in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, Maj.
Indeed, the Washington Post reports today that the U.S. provided Turkey with intelligence so they could target bases of the PKK, the rebel Kurdish group that stages attacks on Kurdish forces from bases in northern Iraq.
Think of these Kurdish forces working under the umbrella of the Iraqi opposition as a whole, not just Kurdish elements of the opposition, in coordination and direct liaison with U.S. special forces on the ground and command and control from Central Command.
In another sign of how difficult it will be to disband militias or fold them into government forces, Mr Talabani, the Kurdish president, said that Kurdish peshmerga forces in the north were not militias, but rather organised forces.
In August, Iraqi forces entered Khanaqin, a territory disputed between Arabs and Kurds that is secured by the Kurdish peshmerga forces.
Militants often exploit tensions between the Iraqi and Kurdish security forces by launching deadly attacks in the city, correspondents say.
Correspondents say militants often exploit differences between the Iraqi and Kurdish security forces by launching deadly attacks in the city.
American special forces and Kurdish fighters closed in on Iraqi forces in the north, and entered the city of Kirkuk .
Turkey has long fought a brutal campaign against Kurdish separatists of the Kurdish Workers Party, known as the PKK. And on occasion, Iranian forces shell Kurdish separatists based near the Iraq-Iran border.
Instead, Mr Zebari speaks of special missions behind enemy lines in which American special forces and Kurdish peshmergas will work together.
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The second conference in November in Istanbul, Turkey, was largely overshadowed by an increase in fighting between Turkish forces and Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq.
The Kurdish Coordination Committee reported fighting between Kurdish rebels and security forces in Malikiye, located east of Qamishli across from the Turkish border city of Cizre.
Turkey has launched ground, air and artillery attacks on suspected PKK bases in northern Iraq, which is generally under the control of the Iraqi Kurdish regional government and its forces.
Many - most - residents are badly damaged by what they refer to as "the war" and the resurgence in violence between Kurdish paramilitaries and the security forces threatens much of the progress of the last few years.
In the preceding years, Saddam's forces had destroyed most Kurdish villages, killing tens of thousands and displacing many more.
In the face of the rebel uprising, Syrian government forces pulled out of Kurdish areas in the north to concentrate on the fighting elsewhere.
CNN's Ben Wedeman, in the city, reported it was "very much in the control of the Kurds" and said a U.S. Special Forces-backed, Kurdish-appointed governor was reportedly on his way -- slowed, Wedeman said, by the sheer numbers of Kurds on the road from Erbil to Kirkuk.
There are fears that, once US forces leave Iraq, the Kurdish tensions with Baghdad might escalate into violence.
During the war in Iraq, Kurdish fighters largely worked under or alongside US forces.
Turkey's security forces consider the Syrian-backed Kurdish Workers Party to be among their main security concerns.
Iran was also expanding contacts across the board with paramilitary forces and political groups, including Kurdish parties such as the PUK, a US ally.
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In the north, Kurdish peshmerga fighters, supported by American special forces, captured the stronghold of an extremist Islamist group which America has accused of having links with terrorism and al-Qaeda.
Similarly, while Iraq has been subjected to military attack and economic sanctions over, among other things, its repression of its Kurdish minority, Turkey, which hosts Western forces, is able to suppress its own Kurds without much of a peep from the West.
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Indeed, the programme was expected to succeed precisely because it coincided with the defeat of Turkey's Kurdish insurgency, a retreat of the armed forces from politics, an attack on corruption, an advance in the protection of human rights, a reduction in tension with Turkey's neighbours and, above all, a redoubled effort to get Turkey into the European Union.
But Kurdish activists said the killings were carried out by forces in the Turkish state itself who wanted to derail the talks.
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Its special forces also have long experience in fighting Kurdish rebels in south-eastern Turkey - a mountainous region whose terrain is similar to Afghanistan.
The BBC's James Reynolds, in Turkey, says that Kurdish activists believe the killings were carried out by forces in the Turkish state itself intent on derailing the talks.
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