FEATURE - Iraq's joint Kurd, Arab, U.S. patrols face big hurdles

By Tim Cocks

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. officials are hoping joint patrols between Iraq's largely Arab army and Kurdish troops will build trust in tense disputed northern areas, dampening the tinder that many fear could ignite Iraq's next war.

The troops themselves aren't so sure.

"We don't need the Iraqi army here," said Kurdish Peshmerga soldier Shamok Haydi, 28, from his checkpoint outside the small, mountain-ringed town of Wana, which sits on the western outskirts of Iraq's most violent city, Mosul.

"They will cause problems and people won't accept them."

Six and a half years after the U.S.-led invasion removed Saddam Hussein, northern Iraq is at the heart of a struggle between minority Kurds and Baghdad's Shi'ite Arab rulers over control of its territory and the vast lakes of oil underneath.

The Kurds claim many parts of northern Iraq, including the oil-producing city of Kirkuk, as their ancient homeland and want to incorporate them into their peaceful enclave, which has been largely autonomous with Western backing since 1991.

U.S. officials, who are racing to pacify Iraq before U.S. combat troops pull out by September next year, see the row as the greatest threat to the country's stability as the Sunni-Shi'ite violence which nearly tore it apart fades.

Saddam's displaced thousands of Kurds from Kirkuk and other areas in a policy of "Arabisation", but Arab residents say Kurds have moved in aggressively after 2003 to tip the balance the other way.