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US might bolster force in northern Iraq: general
The US military may set up an additional headquarters in northern Iraq even after Washington scales back its forces by a September deadline, a top US general said on Tuesday.
The possible move reflects US concerns that Arab-Kurd tensions, provoked by disputes over land and oil rights, are the biggest threat to Iraq's long-term stability.
General David Petraeus, head of Central Command, told lawmakers that putting a headquarters in the country's volatile north was "something that we are looking at."
"There's a possibility that we may want to keep an additional brigade headquarters, as an example, but then slim out some of its organic forces and some of the other organic forces elsewhere," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"And if indeed we think that there's a particularly fragile situation, say, in a certain area in the north, then we might do that," the general said.