Hundreds of jubilant Kurdish "peshmerga" fighters poured across what hours before had been an Iraqi frontline today.
Scouts returning from the hills above Chamchamal, a town in the northern Iraqi enclave controlled by Kurds opposed to President Saddam Hussein, said they had met no resistance and believed government forces had fled. They said Iraqi forces had retreated towards the oil hub of Kirkuk.
|
|
Kurdish fighters travel to a frontline position abandoned by SaddamHussein's forces near the town of Chamchamal Photo: Reuters
|
US warplanes last pounded the hilltops above Chamchamal on Wednesday, and Iraqis left behind mortars and machineguns in their bunker positions. "We have sent around 300 peshmerga fighters across the front so far," said senior Kurdish commander Mam Rostam.
"They have defence lines there, the so-called belt around Kirkuk," he added. He could not confirm peshmerga accounts of five bodies found in one position near the frontline, which collapsed on Thursday.Oil-rich Kirkuk, 20 miles west of Chamchamal, is of huge strategic importance in the US-led assault to overthrow Saddam, launched nine days ago.
The breakthrough at Chamchamal was the first such development along the frontline separating government troops from Kurdish fighters protecting the northern enclave.