Kurdish fighters pour towards Kirkuk

CHAMCHAMAL, Iraq - Hundreds of Kurdish fighters streamed towards the key northern oil hub of Kirkuk late on Wednesday as euphoria over the collapse of Saddam Hussein's government in Baghdad spread.

Commanders in Chamchamal, a Kurdish-controlled town some 35km east of Kirkuk, said local "peshmerga" fighters had no plans to launch an assault, although the lightly-armed forces were clearly keen to move.

"We are not intending to attack Kirkuk," said senior Kurdish commander Mam Rostam in Chamchamal.

"I am sure the people of Kirkuk will welcome us because they have suffered so much under this regime," he told Reuters.

Farther west in Qarahanjir, a garrison town abandoned by Iraqis last month after US warplanes pounded them, peshmerga prevented Reuters correspondents from moving closer to Kirkuk.

"There is a risk of friendly fire," they said. "The peshmerga are not much farther on than this." Peshmerga are believed to be less than 10km from Kirkuk.

He said US warplanes had hit Iraqi government positions in and around Kirkuk at around 6.30pm (2.30am NZT). Jets could be heard flying above Chamchamal three hours later.

Rostam said there was no sign that Iraqi forces had collapsed in Kirkuk, despite US Marines sweeping into the heart of Baghdad amid chaotic scenes of rejoicing.

Saddam is a hated figure among Iraq's Kurds. The Iraqi president's forces used poison gas on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988, killing thousands, and also crushed a brief Kurdish revolt after the 1991 Gulf War.

The Kurdish-controlled zone in northern Iraq was set up after the revolt under US and British aerial protection.

Towns across the enclave erupted with joy on Wednesday, with people honking car horns and firing guns into the air.

"Saddam and his men are finished, or will be finished soon. They're surrounded now, and God willing I'll be in Kirkuk tomorrow," said 29-year-old Rafiq Baway, who heard the news on satellite TV in the city of Sulaimaniya.

Boys scaled trees and lamp-posts shouting "Kurdistan!" while others held up pictures of Iraqi Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani and nationalist hero Mullah Mustafa Barzani.

On the road from Sulaimaniya to Chamchamal, peshmerga in their trademark baggy green trousers and camouflage jackets and with Kalashnikov rifles slung over their shoulder tried to hail cars to take them towards Kirkuk.

US special forces have been seen in Kurdish positions close to Kirkuk and other Iraqi positions along the northern front in recent weeks, helping fighters and heavy B-52 bombers to pinpoint their targets.

A small number of troops have also been flown in to the area, although their numbers are considered too small to take major cities like Mosul and Kirkuk from the north unless Iraqi government forces there collapse.

Kurdish commanders and politicians have been careful to deny that their forces would move on Mosul and Kirkuk alone, but have not ruled out doing so under US command and as part of the Iraqi opposition.

Neighbouring Turkey is particularly concerned about the prospect of Kurdish forces seizing Kirkuk, a major oil centre, because it could embolden its own Kurdish minority to renew their fight for self-rule.

Tens of thousands of Kurds have been forced to leave northern cities by Saddam's often brutal policy of Arabisation, and officials insist they have the right to return if the cities are liberated.

Iraqi forces have retreated right along the northern front, many of them concentrating around Mosul and Kirkuk.

The US military may be trying to isolate the main power bases in the north from one another and also from Baghdad.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq war