- Title: IRAQ: RESIDENTS WELCOME KURDISH FIGHTERS INTO KIRKUK
- Date: 10th April 2003
- Summary: (EU) KIRKUK, IRAQ (APRIL 10, 2003) (REUTERS) 1. SLV TRUCKS AND OTHER VEHICLES ON OUTSKIRTS OF KIRKUK 0.11 2. SLV DOUBLE ARCHWAY OVER ROAD 0.15 3. SLV KIRKUK STREET SCENE /PEOPLE IN CAR WITH U.S FLAG 0.21 4. MV DEFACED POSTER OF IRAQI PRESIDENT SADDAM HUSSEIN / PULLOUT TO WIDE OF STREET WITH SMOKE RISING NEAR BUILDING 0.46 5.
- Embargoed: 25th April 2003 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: KIRKUK, IRAQ
- Country: Iraq
- Reuters ID: LVA38OTXPC6384Z187MO6PEIQ433
- Story Text: Jubilant residents have poured onto the streets of
Kirkuk to welcome Kurdish fighters in the latest city to fall
in the war against Saddam Hussein.
Kurdish guerrillas captured Iraq's important northern
oil city of Kirkuk on Thursday (April 10, 2003), in a virtually
bloodless rout of government forces that sparked joyful
celebrations in the streets.
It was the first major city in northern Iraq to fall in
the U.S.-led war to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and
its capture sparked immediate concerns in neighbouring Turkey,
worried about the possible creation of an independent Kurdish
state.
Until now, Kirkuk has been in an Iraqi government-controlled
area just to the west and south of a Kurdish-ruled zone created
under Western protection after the Gulf War of 1991.
On the outskirts of the city as it fell, taxis full of
Iraqis who had lived through weeks of heavy bombardment from
U.S. warplanes streamed east towards Kurd-controlled
territory, sounding horns and firing shots from automatic
rifles in relief.
Residents of Kirkuk, a city of 700,000 people that for the
past 12 years has been under Baghdad's control but close to a
Kurdish-ruled zone of northern Iraq, gave an ecstatic welcome
to the hundreds of Kurdish fighters pouring in from the east.
Local people cheered the peshmerga (which means "those who
face death") as liberators and children swarmed out into the
streets, stopping cars and saying "Thanks Mr Bush" in
reference to U.S. President George W. Bush.
There was no sign of resistance and residents said Iraqi
soldiers had either laid down their arms or withdrawn south
towards Tikrit.
The city was pounded by U.S. B-52 bombers early in the
morning, helping to trigger the Iraqi collapse which came the
day after U.S. forces took control of most of Baghdad.
U.S. bombers had been pummelling Iraqi defensive lines
near Kirkuk and elsewhere along the demarcation line with the
Kurdish-run area since the Iraq war began on March 20. But
only in the last few days had Iraqi troops begun pulling back.
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