OPERATION NORTHERN WATCH

Operation Northern Watch: translation

(ONW)

   As a result of the heavy infighting between Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) that broke out again in August 1996, Barzani invited Saddam Hussein to intervene on his side. This allowed the Iraqi forces to capture some 96 local Kurds working for Operation Provide Comfort (OPC), the allied relief program (which also gathered intelligence) in northern Iraq, and enforced the no-fly zone that was supposed to protect the Iraqi Kurds from Iraqi incursion. As a result, OPC was scaled down (France dropped out) and renamed Operation Northern Watch as of 1 January 1997. This operation was finally terminated in 2003 after the United States overthrew Saddam Hussein.