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Kurdish take oil town kirkuk Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2934625.stmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2934625.stm
Oil town Kirkuk 'falls'
US-backed Kurdish forces have moved into the centre of the northern town of Kirkuk, one day after the regime of Saddam Hussein collapsed in Baghdad.
A BBC correspondent travelling with the troops, Dumeetha Luthra, said local people were celebrating.
"I am surrounded by crowds of people. They're celebrating what appears to be the fall of Kirkuk," she said.
Our correspondent said there were still pockets of resistance, but the army appeared to have fled the town that controls the oil fields of northern Iraq.
The BBC's John Simpson, reporting from central Iraq, says Kurdish commanders told him that their fighters had entered the city in disguise overnight and started an uprising,
The Kurdish capture of Iraq's fourth-largest city could have major ramifications as different groups position themselves for power in post-war Iraq.
Neighbouring Turkey has made it clear that it will not countenance anything that looks like an independent Kurdish state.
"Everything is being followed very closely," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told reporters on Thursday.
"Whatever is necessary will be done. Talks are being carried out. Turkey's stance on this issue is clear and open."
Baghdad resistance
In Baghdad, US troops are continuing to face sporadic resistance, coming under fire in several parts of the city on Thursday.
One battle broke out on the banks of the River Tigris at dawn as a convoy of marines and US special forces turned into a wide road leading to one of the presidential palaces.
Iraqi troops - thought to be members of the elite Republican Guard - fired machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades at the convoy, killing one American soldier.
The marines later began searching a nearby mosque, where it was thought the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein might be hiding.
There was also gunfire overnight as people barricaded themselves in their blacked-out homes, fearing looters after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's control of the Iraqi capital on Wednesday.
The US does not have enough troops on the ground in Baghdad to maintain order, BBC correspondents in the city say.
Other key developments: US President George Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair are to broadcast messages direct to the Iraqi people on a new TV station, Towards Freedom, set up by coalition forces
US Secretary of State Colin Powell says Washington will select emerging leaders in post-war Iraq to help create a new interim Iraqi authority. The UN would not play a leading role in the political transformation of Iraq, he said.
An Iraqi opposition leader, Ahmad Chalabi, accuses the US of failing to bolster security and ease humanitarian conditions in Iraq
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says Syria - which he accuses of giving military assistance to Iraq - has helped members of the Iraqi regime escape
Mr Rumsfeld has described the scenes of celebrating Iraqis in Baghdad as "breathtaking and historic".
I can't say if I'm happy or sad, really. I feel like a citizen of the Arab world before being Iraqi, but it's like your country is being occupied.
Nariman, resident of Baghdad
The Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations - in the only response so far by an Iraqi official - said on Wednesday that the "game is over"
But BBC correspondents in Baghdad caution that, while scenes of cheering Iraqis yesterday were dramatic, not everyone in the city is celebrating.
US forces have encountered resistance in the west, and army units called in an A10 "tank buster" plane for air support in at least one skirmish.
Elsewhere in the military campaign: US warplanes attack targets on the west bank of the Tigris in Baghdad, where non-Iraqi Arab fighters appear to be in control of several districts, according to a Reuters report.
US and UK planes bomb Saddam Hussein's home city of Tikrit, about 145 kilometres (90 miles) north of Baghdad
Further south and east, US forces say they had taken control of an Iraqi divisional headquarters at Amarah, close to the Iranian border, without a fight.
In Iraq's second city, Basra, British forces said they still needed to restore order and eliminate the last remnants of Iraqi resistance.
The commander of British forces in the Gulf, Air Marshall Brian Burridge, said it would be a few more days before the aid agencies could resume their work in the city, which still lacks water and basic medical supplies.
UK troops have offered a gun amnesty in an effort to restore order to Basra.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/2934625.stm
Published: 2003/04/10 11:03:35
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