Inside Kurdish stronghold troops train for battle

At the foot of the snow-capped mountains of Kurag, Bradoz and Bapustian in northern Iraq, Kurdish soldiers perform their daily training routine in the biting cold under the vigilant eye of their superiors - former officers in the Iraqi army.

The Military Training Camp in Soran, a district west of Arbil, spreads over 20 square kilometres. It was once an Iraqi army outpost, but three years ago, Masoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), converted the premises into the base of his First Special Force.

The force numbers over 1,300 soldiers, aged between 18 and 28 years, who are counted on to hold down the fort in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

These men are trained for combat with conventional weaponry, but their superiors concede that in the event of a chemical attack, "our fate is in the hands of God".

Still, their training and knowledge gives them an edge over the peshmarga (partisan) militiamen, according to 58-year-old Brigadier General Yacoub Yousef Hasan, who heads the camp.