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Another day, another city falls

Paul Vallely
Friday 11 April 2003 00:00 BST
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After the elation and euphoria of the Fall of Baghdad a grim new reality set in yesterday. On Day 22 of the war the focus of battle shifted north – to the strategic cities of Kirkuk and Khaneqin, which fell yesterday, and Mosul and President Saddam's home city of Tikrit, on which Allied forces steadily advanced. But everywhere else the Iraqi people, and the US-led troops, were coming to terms with a grim and fearful quotidian existence – and the anxiety that the invasion that became a liberation might yet become an occupation.

Not that the over-excited atmosphere had completely evaporated. As dawn broke there was fevered speculation that President Saddam was still alive, and taking refuge in the al-Adham mosque in the north-west of the capital. US Marines had come under fire from a large group of Iraqis who had taken up defensive positions around the mosque. Rumours swept the capital.

After a three-hour shoot-out – said by one correspondent to be the toughest battle of the war so far – in which one marine died and at least eight were wounded, the Americans took control of the mosque. If they found the Iraqi tyrant they were keeping very quiet about it. "Saddam Hussein has already been spotted in more places than Lord Lucan," the BBC's Andrew Gilligan observed wryly. "He's been in the Russian embassy, he's been in the mosque this morning, he's alleged to be on a convoy to Syria..."And there were many who were certain he had escaped to the most heavily fortified of all his presidential palaces, with a warren of underground tunnels, in Tikrit.

The siege of the mosque was far from the only fighting in Baghdad. The military ring around the city may, by yesterday morning, have been complete but US forces came under fire in several parts of the capital. One particularly fierce battle broke out on the banks of the Tigris. And in the Mansur area in the west, non-Iraqi Arab fighters gave the US 3rd Infantry a hard time.

Looting continued in the city unabated. Tens of thousands of people, young and old, men and women, converged on the city centre from the poor outlying districts with wheelbarrows and carts. As well as government ministries, embassies came under attack by the scavenging hordes. The German embassy and French Cultural Centre were ransacked. So was the Unicef building. They even descended on the al-Kindi, the largest hospital in the capital, though medical school students then turned out in their blue smocks to comb the neighbourhood for looted medical supplies.

What also became clear was that the exultation of the day before had largely been restricted to the Shia community, who make up 60 per cent of the city's population. The Sunnis were yesterday maintaining a sullen calm, and staying in their homes in large numbers as anarchy was unleashed. Baghdad yesterday was a city without law or order – and there were, for the moment, too few US troops to fill the vacuum.

To the south, looting in the second city of Basra continued, but at a lesser pace. Some put this down to the influence of sharia law, which classically states that when a city is taken in war, and that city has put up resistance, its occupants lose their automatic right to hold their property. This waiver obtains for three days, after which all spoils of war and looting must cease. But others point to the shift in the role of British troops there. Yesterday they offered a gun amnesty as part of their efforts to restore calm 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.

On the political front the big event of the day was the joint broadcast by George Bush and Tony Blair to the people of Iraq on a new TV station called Towards Freedom. They pre-recorded the statements when they met at Hillsborough Castle two days ago, promising a new era of freedom for Iraqis. The Prime Minister said that Saddam Hussein gave the Allies "no choice" but to act and promised the war will be "seen through to the end". President Bush promised: "The long era of fear and cruelty is ending. The government of Iraq and the future of your country will soon belong to you."

Allied troops were not there to stay, was the message. One Iraqi took it literally. He went up to an American marine in the street and said to him: "I'm going to exercise my right of free speech for the first time in my life – we want you out of here as soon as possible."

Elsewhere reactions varied considerably. Across the globe Iraqi diplomats, from Brasilia to Bangkok, denounced the regime, apparently fearful they will be implicated in the evils of President Saddam. "The game is over," said the hitherto Baathist loyalist Iraqi ambassador to the UN. "The work now is peace, we hope that peace will prevail." To which the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, riposted: "It wasn't a game," evidently forgetting that George Bush had earlier used the exact same phrase.

Opponents of the war began to reposition themselves. The Vatican offered to help in the rebuilding of Iraq and in the distribution of aid. The French President, Jacques Chirac, said: "France, like every democracy, welcomes the fall of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, and hopes there will be a rapid and effective end to the fighting." French voters have evidently been stunned by the welcome American forces received in Baghdad on Wednesday and the French media have warned that Mr Chirac – the "king of peace without a crown", according to Libération – is now threatened with isolation on the international stage. Tomorrow the French leader will meet the other two main European opponents of the war, Germany's Gerhard Schröder and Russia's Vladimir Putin, in St Petersburg.

But some were unrepentant. In Britain and America the headlines may have been about "the end of an evil era" but the tone and the language had not changed across the Arab world. While few tears were shed for Saddam Hussein or his regime, there were fears for what lies ahead and deep distrust of the intentions of the Americans. Surreally, Austria's far-right Jörg Haider branded Mr Bush and Mr Blair "war criminals" who launched the war in violation of international law. And the Stop the War Coalition announced it expects hundreds of thousands to attend a demonstration in London on Saturday to protest against civilian deaths in Iraq and demand the withdrawal of troops.

On the battlefield, US troops may have found one the largest caches of weapons yet – including 250 mortar systems, enough for more than 30 battalions – but was no assumption that all President Saddam's troops would abandon their weapons and flee. Yesterday the US military moved more giant Moab bombs to the Gulf region.

Even so, things were going well for the Allies further north, where the term "coalition" is more than a euphemism for the US. Kurdish fighters took the strategic city of Khaneqin, near the Iranian border. Peshmerga fighters advanced on Mosul. Then came news that Kurdish fighters had stormed unopposed into the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, where US B-52 bombers had been pounding a division of Iraqi troops for some time.

Chaotic street celebrations took place as the Kurds – this time without their US special forces allies – entered Iraq's fourth city. Hundreds of cars poured in with Kurdish people waving green flags and the Stars and Stripes. The inevitable statue of President Saddam was sent crashing and the looting began. The Baath party HQ – whose stalwarts had apparently fled to Tikrit – was stripped bare.

It was victory replete with political complexity. Kirkuk is surrounded by the richest oilfields in the region and is connected by pipelines to ports on the Mediterranean. In 2002, it was carrying about one million barrels a day of Iraqi crude to Turkey's Mediterranean coastal outlet of Ceyhan. Small wonder that leaders in the Kurdish self-rule area in the north of Iraq want to make Kirkuk the political capital of a Kurdish autonomous entity in a federation with the rest of Iraq after the war. And small wonder that neighbouring Turkey, with its own restive Kurdish community, considers the idea a security threat. It fears that autonomy – or worst still, independence – would make its own Kurds want the same.

It is a political minefield. The Kurds want to reverse President Saddam's longstanding "Arabisation programme", which sought to change the demography of the areas where Iraq's vast oil wealth lies by forcing Kurds and Turkmen out to be replaced by Arabs, mainly from the south. Turkey, which has amassed vast troop concentrations along the nearby border, has threatened that if the Kurds do not withdraw it will send its own troops in.

Within two hours of the capture of Kirkuk the Turkish Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul, announced that Ankara was watching events in northern Iraq closely and "whatever is necessary will be done". Minutes later Washington announced that American special forces were trying to get a US presence into Kirkuk "in the interest of regional stability", and the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was on the phone to Ankara to promise that fresh US forces would be in Kirkuk within a few hours. The Kurds announced that they wouldn't be staying in Kirkuk. And the Turks announced they would be sending "military observers" to Kirkuk to monitor the Kurdish withdrawal.

It was not the only political row. A US plan to bring together 43 Iraqi politicians – 14 former exiles and 29 internal critics of President Saddam – at a meeting on Saturday at the Ali ibn Abi Talib airbase outside Nasiriyah was announced by the US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher in Washington. The aim was to plan an interim government. But behind the scenes there was tension between the Pentagon, which wants to get prominent exiled Iraqis into position as soon as possible, and the State Department, which insists this should be a chance for leaders to arise from the population of liberated Iraqis.

At the heart of the disagreement is the controversial Ahmed Chalabi, the candidate of Donald Rumsfeld, but who is distrusted by others in part because of a conviction for embezzlement. Also there will be Ayatollah Mohammad Bakir Hakim, a promiment Shia leader who has been in exile in Iran – and of whom one US hawk reportedly said: "We want to give the Iraqis democracy, but we don't want them voting for someone like Hakim."

Yet another sign of the problems of the post-Saddam maelstrom to come was evidenced in the holy city of Najaf, where a reign of terror was reported at the hands of a militia group backed by US special forces. It has been looting and terrorising the neighbourhood with impunity, residents say. Yesterday in Najaf a senior Shia cleric – who until two weeks ago lived in London and was an adviser to Tony Blair –was murdered in the city's main shrine, the Imam Ali mosque. Abdul Majid al-Khoei was the son of Iraq's most prominent clergyman, the late Grand Ayatollah Abul-Qasim al-Khoei. He was also close to the man who currently holds that title, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, whom US military authorities are wooing for support.

The new lawlessness was everywhere yesterday. Back in Baghdad a suicide bomber set off a number of grenades at a US checkpoint, killing at least one marine.

In the course of the day at least three civilians were killed, and many injured, in crossfire or by the guns of edgy American soldiers – who, amongst them, shot a six-year-old girl in the head.

Elsewhere in the country there are key points – including the city of Kut, south-east of Baghdad, which are not yet in Allied control. The assault on President Saddam's birthplace, Tikrit, apparently protected by the Republican Guards' Adnan division, is yet to take place. Some 2,500 extra US troops are on their way there. The war is far from over.

Iraq conflict day's events

Thursday 7am BST: US Marines search a Baghdad mosque after coming under fire. One marine killed and at least 13 wounded.

7.55: The French President, Jacques Chirac, voices "satisfaction" at downfall of Saddam Hussein and hopes for quick end to fighting.

8.32: Celebrations in Kirkuk as peshmerga and US special forces enter city.

1pm: George Bush and Tony Blair address Iraqi people on new television station, pledging that power will be given to Iraqi people.

1.05: Kirkuk crowd topples statue of Saddam.

1.53: At least one Baghdad hospital is ransacked and others are closed because of violence and looting.

2.52: A Shia Muslim leader, Abdul Majid al-Khoei, and another cleric are murdered in Najaf.

3.40: At least one US Marine killed in possible suicide-bomb attack near Baghdad checkpoint.

Words of war

Kofi Annan, United Nations secretary general

"It appears there is no functioning government in Iraq at the moment."

President George Bush in a television message for Iraqis

"The nightmare that Saddam Hussein has brought to your nation will soon be over."

Abaz Ghazni, a private in the Iraqi army

"Until now I have not seen or heard any news about what has been happening, as none of us were allowed to leave our bunkers. We have just been sitting and watching jets firing at us."

Nada Doumani, of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Baghdad

"Security is very bad and people are not daring to go to the hospitals. Small hospitals have closed their doors and big hospitals are inaccessible."

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