Kurdish fighters backed by U.S. commodes gear up to enter Kirkuk

AS-SULAYMANIYA, Iraq, April 5 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – U.S. Special Forces and Iraqi Kurdish rebels have cut off the southern exits from the oil-rich Kirkuk, and are operating within five kilometre of the strategic northern city, Kurdish military sources said Saturday, April 5.

Military officials from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) said two main highways leading south of Kirkuk were now unusable by Iraqi forces, adding that most Iraqi army units had pulled back to within the city limits, Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"We have been able to send small units to within five kilometres of Kirkuk. The American air strikes have been devastating so most of the Iraqi forces are now in residential areas. They are virtually surrounded," claimed a top PUK commander who asked not to be named.

Independent verification of the advances was not immediately possible, and the PUK has closed off access for journalists to the frontlines around Kirkuk.

Although punishing air strikes around Kirkuk have continued over the past 24 hours, most of the action on the northern front has been focussed on the other main northern city of Mosul.

With U.S. troops now entering Baghdad, PUK officials here said they may wait for Iraqi government troops inside Kirkuk to surrender and allow a peaceful takeover of the city rather than stage a direct attack.

In the past week, Iraqi government troops have abandoned large swathes of territory in the north after their exposed positions overlooking Kurdish-controlled territory came under daily bombardment by U.S.-led warplanes.

Units of Kurdish fighters have arrived in the peripheries of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, while other units are only 120km from northern Baghdad.

A fierce fighting erupted between the Iraqi fighters and the Kurdish fighters (peshmerga) last Thursday, April 3, at the Kurdish town of Khabat.

Two bombs landed on homes in Khabat, killing one man and injuring three civilians, one seriously.