Iraqi Kurds to leave Kirkuk

Iraqi Kurd guerillas yesterday said they would be out of the northern city of Kirkuk by the end of the day as US soldiers in the strategic oil hub made their presence increasingly felt.

But the number of US troops visible in central Kirkuk was just a few dozen, not enough to secure the ethnically diverse city of some 700,000 people.

Kurdish "peshmerga" fighters swept into Kirkuk on Thursday as government forces collapsed, ringing alarm bells in neighbour Turkey which suspects Iraqi Kurds want to claim the city as capital of an independent state. Turkey fears this could fan separatism among its own Kurds.

But he added that some would stay behind at the invitation of the US military to help impose order in a city where looting and vandalism broke out on Thursday and Friday.

Mam Rostam, a senior peshmerga commander, told Reuters a committee would be formed uniting Kirkuk's ethnic groups - including Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens - which would discuss restoring law and order and returning looted property to owners.

In the Turkish-speaking Turkmen quarter of the city, Haji Halir showed Reuters correspondents around his sister's home which had been badly vandalised. Arabs at a bus station complained about the lack of water, electricity and food.

Arabs and Turkmen are also concerned at reprisals by Kurds, especially as tens of thousands of Kurds were forced to leave Kirkuk under President Saddam Hussein's Arabisation programme.

Most would prefer to see Americans in charge, and two small US foot patrols each of eight to 10 soldiers began to fan out from the city centre to the bemusement of many locals.

They had already secured the air base and oilfields on Friday, and Rostam estimated that around 2,000 US soldiers were in Kirkuk or soon to arrive.