The forgotten war of the North

With the world's attention on southern Iraq, US special forces and rag-tag peshmerga began advancing slowly towards Mosul and Kirkuk. This is a report from their front line. By Julius Strauss near Kirkuk.

8 April 2003

"225 DEGREES incoming," the American special forces soldier shouted. The men in his unit grabbed their guns and flattened themselves against the concrete wall of the Hasar television transmitter station.

A few seconds passed and an Iraqi heavy mortar shell exploded with a shattering crack 100 yards to our right. A minute later and another shell came crashing in, this time closer. Then another came and another, more than a dozen altogether.

"Assholes," muttered Chuck, from Massachusetts. He ran over to the radio transmitter. "Under constant artillery barrage at this time," he said. "Don't know what you guys are pushing our way."

Since the war began three weeks ago attention has focussed on southern Iraq, where allied armour columns have slugged it out with Iraqi formations.

But here in the north, a small forgotten war is also unfolding as coalition forces steadily close in on the strategic cities of Mosul and Kirkuk. The pace of advance is slower and the casualty tolls lower.

But the Iraqis are clearly on the back foot, battered senseless by remorseless American bombing and demoralised by harrying raids by the Kurdish peshmerga (guerrillas).

The fact that the allies have produced a northern front at all is a minor miracle. Hamstrung by Turkey's unwillingness to allow United States armoured deployment, they have relied on tiny teams of under-equipped special forces and a rag-tag Kurdish alliance.

We arrived on this front-line last Friday just as the attack on the village of Hasar, 10 miles from Kirkuk, was getting under way.

Officials from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two parties which control this area, have closed the frontline to journalists, but we slipped through on forgotten stony tracks used by smugglers.

In Dobizna, a tiny hamlet, US special forces were holed up on the roof of a shattered building calling in co-ordinates for the bombers high overhead.

Peshmerga and looters were milling around waiting for the chance to move forward.

That afternoon we travelled with them as they seized control of Hasar, a small settlement two miles down the road.

There was no organised advance, they simply roared off down the road Afghan-style in a dozen Toyota pick-ups bristling with guns.

The Iraqis fled across the fields, but as the peshmerga tried to advance beyond Hasar they were met with machinegun fire that sent them diving for cover.

To keep up with the advance we moved into an abandoned Arab house in Hasar. A Libyan AK47 and a 9mm Tariq pistol lay close as we slept, protection against the armed looters and rabid dogs that scour this area.

Opposite, a Communist militia had moved into a mud house and put up a red flag. The base of the Social Democratic Party, fierce-looking peshmerga who pride themselves on being first in and last out, was flying with a blue flag.

Nearby yellow and green flags marked the camps of the PUK and KDP fighters, foot soldiers of the two largest Kurdish parties, who were squabbling over a looted petrol tanker.

There was little co-ordination between the different factions and each advance down the road seemed to come sporadically, and often following mealtimes.

When the peshmerga finally seized the television transmitter station a mile down the road, the Iraqis began to shell it with mortar and tank-fire.

Other fighters raced up to the shattered building to reinforce its defences. The Americans went too. Between the incoming rounds the American soldiers gazed through binoculars at the Iraqi positions, but the thick haze, the result of burning oil trenches, made it all but impossible to see them.

The Americans became frustrated. One soldier barked into the radio: "The B52 took out the tank. But they're still shooting us up."

An hour later the bombers finally arrived. The Iraqi guns finally fell silent. The Allies are undoubtedly winning the war of the north, but progress is painfully slow.