SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq -- As the Iraqi government attempts to secure a capital city ravaged by conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslim Arabs, its decision to bring a third party into the mix may cause more problems than peace.

Kurdish soldiers from northern Iraq, who are mostly Sunnis but not Arabs, are deserting the army to avoid the civil war in Baghdad, a conflict they consider someone else's problem.

The Iraqi army brigades being sent to the capital are filled with former members of a Kurdish militia, the peshmerga, and most of the soldiers remain loyal to the militia.

Much as Shiite militias have infiltrated the Iraqi security forces across Arab Iraq, the peshmerga fill the ranks of the Iraqi army in the Kurdish region in the north, poised to secure a semi-independent Kurdistan and seize oil-rich Kirkuk and parts of Mosul if Iraq falls apart. One thing they didn't bank on, they said, was being sent into the "fire" of Baghdad.

"The soldiers don't know the Arabic language, the Arab tradition, and they don't have any experience fighting terror," said Anwar Dolani, a former peshmerga commander who leads the brigade that is being transferred to Baghdad from the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.

Mr. Dolani called the desertions a "phenomenon," but refused to say how many soldiers have left the army. "I can't deny that a number of soldiers have deserted the army, and it might increase due to the ferocious military operations in Baghdad," he said.

"This is the biggest performance through which we can test them," said Lt. Gen. Ali Ghaidan, commander of land forces for the Iraqi Defense Ministry. The Kurdish soldiers will be using translators, and they will start off doing less dangerous tasks, such as manning checkpoints with Arab soldiers, he said.

In interviews, however, soldiers in Sulaimaniyah expressed loyalty to their Kurdish brethren, not to Iraq. Many said they had already deserted, and those who are going to Baghdad said they would flee if the situation there became too difficult.

"I joined the army to be a soldier in my homeland, among my people. Not to fight for others who I have nothing to do with," said Ameen Kareem, 38, who took a week's leave with other soldiers from his brigade in Irbil and never returned. "I used to fight in the mountains and valleys, not in the streets."

Mr. Kareem said he knew that deserting was risky, but that he would rather be behind bars in Kurdistan than a "soldier in Baghdad's fire." Without the language and with his Kurdish features, he was sure that he would stand out, he said. He's a Kurd, he said, and he has no reason to become a target in an Arab war.

Now, he drives a taxi in Sulaimaniyah, eking out a living and praying that he doesn't get caught.Those who are planning to go to Baghdad said they didn't want to be considered cowards.

Mohammed Abdoul, 41, reluctantly prepared to leave for the Iraqi capital earlier this week. Fear clouded his mind. "I don't know why we should interfere in this Sunni-Shiite war," he said. "If I am going to face a difficult task in Baghdad and feel sectarian tension, I will leave the army forever, come back to Sulaimaniyah and work in the market."