US News & World Report magazine claims that Turkey gives arms and money to Turkmenis in Kirkuk on the North of Iraq. An unnamed US source told the magazine that "Turkey, which fears an independent Kurdistan, is supplying arms and money to the Turkmen population in Kirkuk." According to the article, Shiites in Kirkuk have allowed Mehdi Army militias to take up position in Kirkuk in order to put up a front against the Kurdish forces. Adding to the portrait of the northern region of Iraq painted by the US News & World Report article, a US army commander, General Benjamin Mixon, is quoted as saying "We have to be ready, the tension will be very high." The same article notes that during Saddam's reign, ethnic Arabs were relocated to Kirkuk, while after the US invasion, Kurds had flowed by the thousands into the area, The Hurriyet reports.