Iraqi Arabs protest US plan for Kurdish patrols

Hundreds of Sunni Arabs opposed to the presence of Kurdish troops in disputed areas of northern Iraq demonstrated Saturday against a plan to deploy a mixed force of American, Kurdish and Iraqi soldiers in the area. More than 300 people in the Sunni-dominated town of Hawija, once an insurgent stronghold, gathered in a stadium to protest the inclusion of Kurdish troops in these patrols. The split between Iraq's majority Arabs and the Kurdish minority, which controls a semiautonomous region in the north, is one of the most significant long-term threats to the country's stability, U.S. and Iraqi officials say. Sunni Arabs fear the Kurds are looking to add Arab lands to their semiautonomous region. The top U.S. military commander in the country believes al-Qaida in Iraq is taking advantage of tensions between the Iraqi army and the Kurdish militia, the peshmerga, to carry out attacks on villages not guarded by either side.