The Americans have arrived in force in northern Iraq. Lynne O'Donnell reports from Harir, where troops are establishing another front in the war against Iraq
Standing in the mud outside his back door as his mother's small flock of turkeys scratch the ground, Nariman is oblivious to the driving hail as he scans the valley below and smiles as he recalls the "fantastic show" that he and his family were treated to the night before.
"We couldn't hear ourselves talking," he said yesterday. "It began at six and went on for two hours, until eight. The planes just kept coming, the helicopters kept coming and the parachutes were dropping from the sky."
On Wednesday evening, in a military spectacle of the like rarely witnessed in the past 60 years, more than 1,000 American paratroopers spilled out of the cloudless sky and flopped onto the muddy fields of Harir air base.
As darkness began to close in on the end of a rainy day in the Harir valley, 11 US military planes, each carrying 102 paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne and the Ranger Airborne divisions of the US army, swept over the valley below Nariman's farm.
Far from being an invasion - or even the "seizure" that some excitable television correspondents travelling with the Americans characterised it as - the arrivals have been awaited eagerly by the people of northern Iraq, weary of wearing the yolk of Saddam Hussein.
The feeling among the Kurds is that war cannot come soon enough here. There are reports of a massacre by Iraqi troops under the command of Izzat Ibrahim, Saddam Hussein's number two, in the nearby city of Kirkuk. It is said that 16 youths were shot in the streets as a warning to others not to rise up against Saddam, as the allies have urged.
From where Nariman stands, in front of his grey brick house on the mountain road that snakes towards Harir, he can see American paratroopers digging in on the vast stretch of the lush, green valley below, now the allies' northern base in the war against Saddam Hussein.
Across the plain, which ends at the foothills of the Safin Mountains, the Americans, in helmets and desert fatigues, spent the day setting up sentry posts and machine-gun nests ahead of the next landing.
Two Black Hawk helicopters stood on the newly renovated airstrip, which has been stretched from 2.5 km to 3.4 km to serve the Hercules and Galaxy transport planes that have begun bringing in the building blocks of the next phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
A kilometre or two further north is Harir village, a strip of stone buildings with shops selling the wares of a life on the land. From this perfect vantage point, the fresh black Tarmac coating the airstrip can be seen gleaming in the rain.
Three young American soldiers, their kit covered with plastic khaki ponchos, cradled their M-16s and returned waves with a nod.
"We came in last night, Ma'am," said Sgt Mack in a southern drawl.
"We're based in Italy, I've been there about a year. Can't tell you anything more than that. That's opsecs, I'm afraid," he said, using army jargon for operational secrets.
Northern Iraq has become a fully militarised zone. As Washington develops its plan B for the northern front, it needs to encase the forces of Saddam Hussein from the top and bottom of the country. Harir is the centre of a massive troop-landing operation.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party that controls the western sector of the non-Saddam north has thrown open its bases, airstrips and other military facilities to the allies.
Until American logistical experts arrived a month ago, the Harir airstrip, built by Saddam during his eight-year war on neighbouring Iran, had been allowed to fall into disrepair. The runway was overgrown and strewn with rocks and the access roads all but impassable.
Within weeks it has been transformed into a practical, if not perfect, military staging point, with impressive access to the highway linking Harir to the northern capital of Irbil, and on to both Mosul and Kirkuk, the strategic targets of the northern assault. It is protected from the front lines of the pro-Saddam Baathist forces about 100 km to the south by the mountain range, though the breadth of the valley provides ample air access.
US Marine Maj Gen Pete Osman has established his command at the Shawais General Peshmerga Base of the Kurdistan Democratic Party's Second Force, just outside Irbil, which is heavily guarded by nervous peshmerga (Kurdish militia), under orders to protect their American guests from prying eyes.
From here, Maj Gen Osman will oversee the operational detail of the northern campaign and is expected to build his forces for readiness once Baghdad has fallen to the allied powers. More paratrooper landings are expected in coming days, along with the arrival of heavy armoury, which could be brought to Harir aboard giant transport planes from the Gulf states that are co-operating with the operation.
The decision by Turkey not to allow the Americans to make use of its military bases in the south-east of the country, which borders northern Iraq, made the Kurdish zone at the front line important to the Pentagon's plans.
This has not gone unnoticed, or unremarked upon, by the Iraqi opposition groups in the north, who have embarked on a parallel campaign to spin the war as their own, with the Americans called in to help with the liberation of their country.
This emphasis on self-importance has rubbed off on the peshmerga footsoldiers, who in recent days have come to resemble a professional fighting force, rather than the ragtag band of undisciplined, poorly armed, pudgy, middle-aged guerilla fighters that they really are.
Instead of the baggy trousers, lapelless jackets, colourful cummerbunds and red or black chequered scarves that also serve as turbans, cravats and chest sashes, the peshmerga now wear proper khaki uniforms, with boots instead of sneakers or sandals, and, for the Kurdish Special Forces, bright red berets.
"It's good that they have uniforms, they look more professional and you can see that they feel more professional," said a former peshmerga.