"This is really not about me," Mr. Chalabi said in an interview in February in the Kurdish-controlled area of northern Iraq.

On 25 October, some 200 rebels moved into the district of Ashrafiyeh in the Kurdish-controlled area of Sheikh Maqsud.

In his latest job, he said he had many agents in Kurdish-controlled areas, including some he had never met and could not identify.

Clashes between the two factions in the Kurdish-controlled area of northern Iraq have left at least 100 people dead since the beginning of the month.

Last Saturday Iraqi officials sealed the roads to the Kurdish-controlled area, cutting the delivery of food, medicine, seeds and fertilizer donated by the United Nations.

In the Kurdish-controlled areas of the north, democratic government has taken hold over the last decade.

Eleven of the regular army divisions are involved in defending northern Iraq, close to the Kurdish-controlled areas.

Most of them had not visited Baghdad for decades, and they carried on their work from the United States, Britain or Kurdish-controlled areas of Iraq.

One senior official said a number of Americans from several federal agencies had flown in and out of the Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Iraq to coordinate with opposition groups there.

Ansar al-Islam has its bases in the Kurdish-controlled area of Iraq, beyond the control of Saddam Hussein.