THE NEW Iraqi Kurdish rulers of Arbil yesterday proved that the last Iraqi armoured vehicles had withdrawn from the Iraqi Kurdish capital. They showed foreign reporters a bruised population of a million people who are now short of food, must walk miles for water and have no electricity at all.
The last Iraqis withdrew overnight from around the blasted shell of the parliament building to take up position some 10 miles south east of the city, UN sources and local people said.
There, just north of the 35th parallel and the Iraqis' former front line, a mechanised Iraqi battalion of some 50 armoured vehicles and a light towed artillery battery of 12 guns were parked in a field by the road. The Iraqis did not seem to be digging in and appeared ready to withdraw, the UN sources said.
Their main purpose at that point between the front lines of the two rival Iraqi Kurdish factions seemed to be to prevent the retreating Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) from trying to launch a counter attack to dislodge the new masters of Arbil the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
In Arbil itself hundreds KDP fighters still milled around the entrance to the seat of the administration, the governors office, or lounged in the shade on pavements in front of closed shops. Only a few food shops were open in the city.
The KDP seemed in complete control of Arbil, and determined to prevent any lofting by hot blooded revenge minded fighters itching to come in. At one checkpoint, a convoy of armed guerrillas was barred from entering, leading to angry scenes and the training of heavy machineguns on the group until it left.
Thanks to the overwhelming force applied to the Saturday assault, backed by Iraqi light artillery and tank fire, the fight had been short and the damage to the city seemed minimal. Nobody disputed the KDP's figure of fewer than 200 people killed and injured.
A decision to send UN vehicles around the city as soon as fighting had died down had a great impact in reassuring people not to flee and to deter guerrillas from committing any atrocities, the UN sources said.
"Especially in this situation, our presence is vital. There is no reason for evacuation," said the UN chief of security in Iraqi Kurdistan, Col Poul Dahl, formerly of Danish special forces.
The mansion used by the PUK leader, Mr Jalal Talabani, had been totally wrecked and looted, with black smoke marks scarring the window lintels. The same scene was repeated at many other houses and bases used by senior PUK officials in the city.
Such places were often previously used by top Iraqi officials and had been damaged in the much more destructive PUK takeover of the city in December, 1994, part of the factional infighting that has split Iraqi Kurdistan in two.
The KDP was busily painting out prominent placards on former PUK buildings, while women could be seen walking for miles under the scorching sun with buckets or water tanks to the few places where generators were pumping water from wells.
Foreign aid sources said it was likely that the electricity would be restored soon, since the cut did not appear political. It resulted from a break in the power lines that occurred between the rival Iraqi Kurdish front lines. A local ceasefire had to be arranged before they could be repaired.
The KDP also took down the Iraqi flags that had been flying beside the Kurdish flag above the parliament and the fortified old town that dominates the city, an apparent concession to foreign opinion shocked by their collaboration with President Saddam Hussein's regime.
Local opinion in Arbil was sharply divided over the weekend's events. Small groups that formed to discuss the question agreed that while they still feared President Saddam, they were all sick of the situation and would like to see a return to more central government, while keeping their federal Iraqi Kurdistan.
Some feared the continued presence of Iraqi secret police, although their checkpoints, if they existed at all, seem to have been set up only on Saturday and Sunday. Some townspeople even thought that the Iraqi soldiers had behaved very properly.