Turkey says no evidence of Iraqi Kurd Islamist link to Taliban 

 ANKARA, Oct 3 (AFP) - Turkey said Wednesday that it had found no evidence so far of
 links between radical Islamist groups operating in Kurdish-held northern Iraq and Afghanistan's
 ruling Taliban.

 "Related (Turkish) authorities are looking into and evaluating news and information about certain
 groups in northern Iraq," Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Huseyin Dirioz told a news
 conference.

 "There are claims that some of these groups abuse people's religious beliefs, but there is no
 evidence that they have ties to a specific organization, such as the Taliban," he added.

 Dirioz's comments came in response to press reports that a senior official from a northern Iraqi
 Kurdish group, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Barham Salih, had handed Ankara a
 report about the radical Jund al-Islam (Warriors of Islam) group and its ties to the hardline
 Taliban militia.

 The spokesman confirmed the visit, but denied claims that Ankara had chided the PUK against
 passing the information to the United States in a bid to incite Washington against Iraqi
 President Saddam Hussein.

 But a senior Turkish official told AFP on condition of anonymity that Ankara believed the PUK
 was "exaggerating and trying to take the opportunity to create an atmosphere against
 Saddam".

 Jund al-Islam, a radical splinter group of the Islamic Party of Kurdistan based in the village of
 Biyarah, near the Iranian border, was behind the September 23 attack on the village of Khaili
 Hama in PUK territory, also close to the Iranian border, in which at least 30 PUK fighters were
 killed.

 In retaliation to the attack, the PUK moved into the nearby city of Halabja, rooted out Jund
 al-Islam militants based in the town and began a cleansing operation in the region.

 The PUK says Jund al-Islam is made up of 250 to 300 members trained in Afghanistan and that
 it has has links with al Qaeda, the Islamist network headed by Saudi dissident Osama bin
 Laden, the prime suspect of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

 The group, which practices the same strict brand of Islam as the Taliban, including forbidding
 women to go to school, is just one of many Islamist groups operating in the western-protected
 enclave which has been outside Baghdad's control since the 1991 Gulf War.

 The PUK and another Northern Iraqi Kurdish faction, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), are
 the strongest groups in the mountainous region and the pair recently agreed on a series of
 confidence-building measures to implement a long-delayed peace agreement.

 Turkey has close ties with the KDP, which controls an area along Turkey's border, and
 cooperates with the group in its frequent cross-border operations into northern Iraq against
 Turkish Kurd rebels sheltering in the region.
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