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Kurdish soldiers look in the direction from which they came under fire by the Iraqi militia at the center of
Mosul
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MOSUL,
Iraq, April 11 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A first
contingent of U.S. special forces made their way into the center of the
main northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Friday, April 11, welcomed by
sniper fire.
Eleven
jeeps carrying dozens of U.S. troops reached Mosul from the Dahuk road,
followed by around 300 members of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)
peshmerga fighters, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
They
drove through a city whose streets were empty and that was devastated by
a day of looting after if fell to U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters earlier
Friday.
The
American and Kurdish troops went to the home of Sheikh Ibrahim Attallah
al-Juburi, who heads Iraq's most powerful tribe, and then reached a
government building from which they hastily withdrew after coming under
sniper fire.
The
U.S. military said the Iraqi 5th
Fleet
laid down their arms after a ceasefire agreement.
Mosul,
located 450 kilometers (280 miles) north of Baghdad, is an Arab-majority
enclave of 1.5 million inhabitants in the mostly Kurdish north and
surrounded by oil fields.
But
as Saddam's remaining vestiges of control slipped away, so did law and
order as city after city plunged deeper into chaos and anarchy, with
widespread looting and shooting.
Kurdish
fighters raised an opposition flag over city hall in Mosul after
entering overnight, and U.S. Central Command in Qatar said the oil-rich
city was now under Anglo-American control.
"Mosul
and Kirkuk
have fallen," said Major Rumi Nielson-Green, referring to the other
principal northern Iraqi city, which was taken over by Kurdish and U.S.
forces Thursday, April 11.
"Surrendered"
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Mosul provincial government headquarters on fire after American forces entered Iraq 's third largest
city
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In
AS-SALIYAH, U.S. military spokesman Brigadier General Vincent Brooks
said that formal ceasefire was signed earlier in the day near the
northern city of Mosul between U.S. forces and the commander of the
Iraqi 5th Army Corps.
"In
the north a coalition special operations commander accepted a signed
ceasefire agreement from the Iraqi 5th Corps commander regular army near
Mosul," he told a press briefing.
He
said that now the ceasefire has been signed, members of the 5th Corps
were expected to leave the battlefield.
"Some
of them already have, leaving their equipment and either returning to
the garrison or simply proceeding with life as civilians out of
uniform," the general said.
Brooks
said the ceasefire had been negotiated for some time following "a
period of bombing and close air support missions and also efforts to
make contact."
He
said Iraqi forces in other parts of the country also were walking away
from battlefields, leaving their weapons and uniforms behind.
One
witness in Mosul, Hussein Said, confirmed that Iraqi soldiers "have
abandoned their weapons and gone home."
In
several districts people were seen taking furniture and anything else
they could carry from the official buildings not already destroyed by
the intense U.S. and British air strikes.
But
Al-Jazeera correspondent in Mosul said that security was being restored
with a spontaneous local efforts to protect public properties.
Turkish
Fears
But
the Kurdish forces sweeping into Kirkuk on Thursday and Mosul on Friday
is ringing alarm bells in Turkey,
which suspects Iraqi Kurds want to claim the city as capital of an
independent state.
Ankara
fears this could spark violent separatism among its own Kurds and says
it is willing to risk U.S. fury by sending a large military force to
prevent a Kurdish independence bid.
Close
U.S. ally Turkey has repeatedly threatened to intervene militarily in
northern Iraq if Kurdish forces seized Kirkuk or Mosul.
General
Rostam, a commander of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the other
main Kurdish faction governing Iraqi Kurdistan, said the Kurdish forces
had been ordered to leave the seized areas by Saturday, April 12.
Turkey
was told by the United States that Iraqi Kurdish forces have withdrawn
from the oil city of Kirkuk and will also pull out of the nearby city of
Mosul, a Turkish government source said.
Manhunt
For Saddam
Meanwhile
a U.S. Central Command spokesman said that U.S. and British air strikes
were pounding the area around Tikrit, Saddam's homeland and the site of
his traditional tribal power base north of Baghdad.
The
whereabouts of Saddam and other former Iraqi leaders were unknown.
Brooks
said at a briefing in Qatar that they were trying to escape abroad and
that U.S. troops had been issued with a list of 55 people to be captured
or killed.
An
unknown number of Iraqi forces are believed to be in the area, including
fighters from his Republican Guard.
Despite
a crushing military victory, the chaos in Baghdad and elsewhere, and the
murder
of a religious leader in the holy city of An-Najaf, highlighted the
problems U.S. troops face in restoring order.
Humanitarian
organizations criticized U.S. and British troops, saying the
failure to maintain order threatened their efforts to provide desperately needed
assistance.
