Arab-Kurdish 16th Brigade Splits, Kurds Defect
MESOP 11.6.2013 – Amid ongoing tensions between Iraq’s ethnic Arabs and Kurds, the army’s 16th Brigade — famous for being roughly half Arab and half Kurdish – has split in two, with the Kurdish spokesman for the brigade, Rekawt Mohammed, saying “We have nothing to do with the Iraqi army anymore.”
Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government plans to formally incorporate the 1,200 troops, as well as the territory they currently control, into its own security forces. – http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/amid-rising-ethnic-tension-kurdish-brigade-soldiers-stop-taking-orders-from-baghdad/2013/06/10/e3faa8d4-d1f7-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html