Kurdish tensions boon for al-Qaida?

MOSUL, Iraq, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Tensions between Kurds and Sunni Arabs in Iraqi Kurdistan may create a political vacuum for terrorist groups to gain a foothold in the region, officials say.

Iraqi Kurdistan is a politically sensitive region, with Turkish concerns over the Kurdistan Workers' Party complicating the relationship between the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil and the central government in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, attacks against the Christian minority population there are creating an environment that could bring a strategic advantage to al-Qaida in Iraq, Turkish daily Hurriyet reported Friday.

"Al-Qaida uses this as a tool," Iraqi army Col. Dildar Jamel Mohammed said of the situation in the north.

U.S. military officials point to the northern city of Mosul as one of the last strongholds of al-Qaida in Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki deployed thousands of police and military personnel to the region in an effort to secure the city.

Hurriyet said the role of the Kurdish Peshmerga militia also angers many of the Sunni Arabs living in the region as Kurds look to regain losses from atrocities committed against their population in the 1980s under the regime of Saddam Hussein.