When generals start reporting the number of the enemy they have killed, the reality is that something is probably going wrong with their campaign. Even as its Vietnam intervention was hitting the buffers, the US military produced a daily body count of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops slain. It was later discovered that the figures were largely wrong. Thus when the Turkish military announced this week that 500 Kurdish rebels had been killed in recent months, most in air strikes on PKK camps in Iraq, it is worth asking how they can be sure of such a figure. What cannot be doubted, however, is the death toll among Turkish troops, police and civilians from assaults, mostly via ambushes, from the terrorists. These are now happening almost daily. The resurgence of Kurdish terrorist activity has much to do with Ankara's support for the Syrian opposition and its open calls for Bashar Al-Assad to step down. Syria's own Kurds, though partly free of Baath party rule from Damascus, would rather join with their Iraqi compatriots in attacks on Turkey, than line up in the ranks of the Free Syrian Army. Kurdish militants in Iraq, who enjoy tacit support from the autonomous Kurdish government in Irbil, have discovered increasing support from the Iranians. To protect its Syrian ally, Tehran is not only thought to be giving money and weaponry to the Iraqi-based PKK, it is also encouraging its own Kurdish minority to launch incursions into Turkey. This last initiative may, however, be difficult, since not only do Iranian Kurds regard the Tehran government with the deepest suspicion, thanks to massacres and repression since 1979, but there are also significant clan rivalries with their Iraqi compatriots. Washington does not like this. It appears that in an hour-long phone call this week, President Obama offered Turkish premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan significantly boosted US intelligence support against the PKK. This might also include the deployment of deadly attack drones. The price for this help would be an increased Turkish military presence within NATO's Afghanistan ISAF force. In 2009, when the US added 30,000 of its own troops to ISAF, Erdogan refused to increase Turkey's 1,300 personnel. Nor at the time would it boost its role from training Afghan police and army and running security in Kabul. As ISAF prepares to end its mission within two years, a significantly increased Turkish military presence would, believes Washington, be extremely helpful, especially if it were in a combat role. Obama might have put another condition on US intelligence assistance against the PKK, a condition which has not so far been leaked from the Turkish Prime Minister's office. That would be for Ankara to mend diplomatic fences with Israel, ruptured two years ago when Israeli troops gunned down Turkish peace activists, after they intercepted the Mavi Marmara, during its voyage to take aid to Gaza. This May a Turkish court charged four senior Israeli commanders in their absence, with murder. It is therefore highly unlikely that Ankara could deliver on a public reconciliation with Israel. However, a covert resumption of past relations at an intelligence and military level might be tempting.
