IRAQ: COALITION AIRCRAFT AND KURDISH MILITIA ATTACK TARGETS NEAR ARBIL AND KERZHERA / MANY LANDMINES RECOVERED BY PESHMERGA MILITIAS.

Record ID: 355504

  • Title: IRAQ: COALITION AIRCRAFT AND KURDISH MILITIA ATTACK TARGETS NEAR ARBIL AND KERZHERA / MANY LANDMINES RECOVERED BY PESHMERGA MILITIAS.
  • Date: 29th March 2003
  • Summary: NEAR KERZHERA, 35 KM WEST OF ARBIL, IRAQ (KURDISH CONTROLLED NORTHERN IRAQ) 1. LAS: VAPOUR TRAILS OF COALITION WAR PLANES IN SKY ABOVE. 0.27 2. GV: OF HILL TOP/ BOMB HITS HILL TOP, EXPLOSION AND PLUME OF SMOKE RISING. 0.41 3. CU: OF SMOKE FROM HILL TOP AFTER BOMB HAS HIT. 0.47 4. GV: SECOND BOMB HITS HILL TOP, EXPLOSION AND PLUME OF
  • Embargoed: 13th April 2003 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NEAR KERZHERA, 35 KM WEST OF ARBIL; AND QUSHTAPA, KURDISH ZONE-GOVERNMENT FRONTLINE AND 3 KM SOUTH OF QUSHTAPA (ON THE ROAD TO KIRKUK); NORTHERN IRAQ
  • Country: Iraq
  • Reuters ID: LVAEIJBRT4EZ8PQL2GYXOSK7BKUY
  • Story Text: Coalition aircraft have carried out several strikes on
    targets west of Arbil at Kerzhera in northern Iraq, which
    local people said was a forward base for the Iraqi army.

    And Kurdish militias say they seized up to 25 km (16 miles)
    of Iraqi government territory in overnight fighting on the
    road from Arbil to Kirkuk, and showed off 160 mines they had
    dug up.



    Air strikes by coalition aircraft against Iraqi
    military targets in the north of the country have intensified.

    On Saturday (March 29, 2003), coalition war planes carried out
    several strikes on targets in government controlled areas,
    west of the Kurdish controlled zone in northern Iraq.

    Several targets were hit west of Arbil at Kerzhera, which
    local people said was a forward base for the Iraqi army.

    On a chance visit to the front line border crossing of
    Qushtapa between Baghdad controlled territory and the
    Kurdish-ruled zone, a Reuters Television reporters met a
    Kurdish Peshmerga commander who said his troops had moved
    during the night.

    "The action took place in the early hours of this
    morning," he said. "We have moved 25 km into Iraqi territory."
    His claim could not be confirmed. But he sent some
    Peshmerga troops, as the informal Kurdish militias are known,
    to accompany Reuters at least three km inside territory until
    recently held by the Baghdad government.

    On the way, Reuters filmed Peshmerga troops exploding
    anti-personnel mines, while other troops were searching for
    more by poking thin sticks into the soil. The Peshmerga had
    also recovered a large stack of anti-tank mines, which they
    said they planned to keep for their own use.

    The commander did not say whether his troops had
    encountered any resistance. But this correspondent was shown a
    small collection of what appeared to be a soldier's personal
    belongings, including a military water canteen, with
    bloodstains on them. There was no other evidence of violence.

    The three northernmost provinces of Iraq have been under
    Kurdish self-rule since 1991, when the United States and
    Britain established a no-fly zone to protect the Kurds from
    Iraqi President Saddam Hussein after he brutally put down a
    failed Kurdish uprising at the end of the Gulf War.

    Kurds and Iraqi government troops have faced each other
    across an armed front line ever since, but as the U.S.-led war
    to oust Saddam gathers pace, the Peshmerga have been tempted
    to advance as Iraqi troops have apparently pulled back.

    To the south east of Qushtapa along the front line near
    the village of Chamchamal, Kurdish troops also advanced
    earlier this week.

    Driving along the road into what was Iraqi territory on
    the other side of Qushtapa on Saturday, palls of smoke were
    clearly visible rising from the direction of the city of
    Kirkuk, northern Iraq's oil capital and under government
    control.

    Travellers crossing recently from Kirkuk to Arbil, the
    largest city in the Kurdish-ruled zone, before the border was
    sealed at the start of the war, told Reuters the city was
    ringed with trenches filled with crude oil. The smoke would
    indicate that these have now been set ablaze.

    They also said that the oilfields themselves had been
    mined, but there was no evidence that these have been
    detonated.

    GULF WAR 3



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