U.S. mistakenly put Kurdish party on terror list

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

The National Counterterrorism Center says it was a mistake to include the symbol of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan — the political party headed by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani — on a list of “terrorist logos” that police should be on the lookout for during traffic stops and other contacts with the public.

The PUK, one of the two Kurdish political parties that make up the regional government in Iraq’s Kurdish area, is not on the lists of designated foreign terror groups maintained by the State or Treasury departments, and is considered by many in the U.S. government as one of the nation’s closest allies in its war on terrorism.

“After a review, we determined that the PUK logo should not have been included, and we have updated the online version,” NCTC spokesman Carl Kropf told United Press International yesterday.

Qubad Talabani, the president’s son and the Kurdistan Regional Government’s representative in Washington, called the inclusion of the PUK’s logo “egregious” and accused the NCTC of “a gross error.”

“I find it quite disturbing,” hesaid.

Kani Xulam, of the American Kurdish Information Network, said the “embarrassing error” was “frightening.”

“This is clearly the act of someone who doesn’t know the first thing” about the history or politics of the region, Mr. Xulam told UPI.

The PUK’s symbol, a hand clutching a rose, was included in a three-page section of the NCTC’s 2008 desk calendar headed “terrorist logos.” More than 40,000 of the calendars were printed, according to an NCTC press release, which called the calendar “a prized resource for law enforcement and national security personnel, providing easy access to terrorist profiles and information on terrorist groups.”

Mr. Kropf said the center’s source for including the PUK was the database maintained by the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism — a congressionally chartered institution based in Oklahoma City and run by contractors DeticaDFI.

The database has entries for many groups that have supported or used violent tactics in the past, including the African National Congress, now the democratically elected governing party of South Africa, and the Kosovo Liberation Army.

Mr. Kropf said the list of logos is not intended to be “judgmental or definitive.”

“This is not a statement of U.S. government policy,” he said, “It should be considered a tool” principally for law enforcement.

Indeed, the introduction to the “terrorist logos” section reads: “Law enforcement officers should be on the watch for these emblems … during traffic stops and other contacts …. Some of these groups appear on the U.S. Secretary of State’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, or are groups that are believed to incorporate violence in the pursuit of their political objectives.”

Qubad Talabani called for an apology from the NCTC “to the PUK, and to the families of the countless PUK members who have lost their lives fighting against dictatorship and terrorism.”

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