Kisses greet the liberators of Kirkuk

After months of waiting on the front-line the Iraqis finally folded. With a couple of close colleagues we were the first westerners into Kirkuk. For many Kurds, it meant the end of decades of living as refugees.

11 April 2003

IF THERE was ever a case of gratitude too great for words to express it was in the eyes of the men, women and children of Kirkuk's Stall Street yesterday.

First they clapped wildly, then they shouted, then they kissed our grimy cheeks with passion. Goran, a 15-year-old wearing a sweatshirt with St Audrey's Convent School emblazoned on it, sat on the floor, knees touching mine, and beamed and beamed.

"America, America, Bush, Bush," he chanted repeatedly.

His cousin Zainab, a 15-month-old girl with paralysed legs, a result of cerebral palsy, smiled and smiled, infected by the joy.

Fadil Talib, a 45-year-old agricultural manager, said with tears in his eyes: "No more killings, chemical attacks and disappearances. At last I can live a normal life." The liberation of Kirkuk yesterday unleashed scenes of joy and liberation not seen in this demoralised, unlovely city for decades.

The day had started on the other side of the front line where the Kurdish peshmerga guerrillas had been preparing to march on Kirkuk, a city they consider their spiritual capital, for weeks.

Each had been issued with ammunition and assigned a point from which to enter the besieged city when the time came. But they had been told to await the order to advance from Washington and London.

We had heard rumours the night before that Kirkuk might be ripe for falling and had risen before dawn.

A two-hour journey on a stony smugglers' track took us to a village barely six miles to the north of the city which had been under heavy Iraqi fire only three days before. By late morning hundreds of peshmerga had gathered and were milling around impatiently.

Bais, a 76-year-old grandfather of 12, was carrying a Russian Draganov sniper rifle. He said: "I am so impatient I'm on fire."

Then the word came: the Iraqis had fled Kirkuk's Kurdish suburbs. No clearer order was needed. Motorbikes revved, men shouted orders and the first pick-ups began to roll. We picked a slot and followed.

The road across the front line was strewn with rubble.

There was a huge oil stain, a large earth barricade and a smashed concrete building with a fading picture of Saddam Hussein painted on it.

Then, on the left, a long line of Iraqi prisoners of war walked past, their heads bowed. Behind them the ridge they had held until so recently was abandoned, smoke still billowing from one of their bunkers.

"It's finished," a Kurdish man screamed at the top of his lungs. Adnan, my driver, flushed with excitement. A former policeman from Kirkuk, he had been thrown out of the force 15 years ago because he was a Kurd, and forced to work as a taxi driver.

Three weeks ago he had fled a Mukhabarat secret police round-up in Kirkuk leaving his wife and children behind.

For days, as we worked the front lines, I had caught him gazing worriedly at the smoke clouds over his native city.

Now as we surmounted the last hill, he grinned broadly, kissed his fingers and touched his forehead with them. "Kirkuk," he muttered, as if the very word was a mantra that could end years of suffering.

Less than five minutes later we were in the city - the first Westerners to enter in weeks, perhaps months. At the sight of our faces, the Kurds in the street simply broke down with joy.

A middle-aged man held my neck and refused to let go for several seconds. All the time he cried like a baby.

Others grabbed and kissed us. When we tried to drive away, men clambered on to our car and danced on the roof.

We headed deeper into town towards the Arab sector. Here the mood was more menacing.

Shooting broke out and more than once we were forced to run for cover. Somebody fired a rocket that landed nearby.

At Tabakchaly Bridge, the main road to the east, a middle-aged man lay dead by the roadside. There was a rumour he was a secret policeman, though nobody was sure.

Opposite was the Ba'ath Party's telephone bugging centre, but the equipment had been shipped out before the regime fled.

Here the mood was more restrained, shutters bolted and fewer people on the streets. As we watched, two groups of looters drew guns on each other.

Further to the south of the city, there was still fighting. Near the old Ba'ath Party headquarters, shattered by a US bomb early in the campaign, several peshmerga were attempting to root out hardline Saddam loyalists.

For half an hour we watched as rounds were exchanged and mortars, apparently fired by the Iraqis, fell among the spacious villas.

Then the peshmerga moved in for the kill. Minutes later a Fedayeen officer - they said he was a Syrian - lay dead by the roadside, blood on his shirt and wallet.

They beat another they caught alive, turning his face into a bloody pulp. The peshmerga turned to us: "Shall we kill him? Shall we kill him? He killed one of our men."

As darkness fell last night, gunfire was still echoing around the city. But there were also the sounds of car horns and jubilant singing.