IRAQIS RETREATING TOWARDS NORTHERN CITIES: Lynne O'Donnell sees a battle fought by US forces in alliance with Kurdish peshmerga
An intense day-long battle waged in the haze of a Middle Eastern day saw camouflaged US special forces line up yesterday with Kurdish irregulars in chequered scarves against the retreating troops of Saddam Hussein.
Vapour trails from US FA-18 Hornets and F-14 Tomcats, called in from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, criss-crossed the sky above the Iraqi town of Ghazer in an operation directed by five Americans from a tiny foxhole on a hill.
Wearing the red-and-white chequered scarves favoured by militiamen loyal to the Kurdish regional warlord, Massoud Barzani, and using electronic visionscopes, the helmeted and chain-smoking Americans pinpointed their targets and guided a six-hour barrage of bombing down on the heads of the Iraqis.
"That guy was just sitting there waiting for something to come and get him," one soldier told colleagues as he looked up from his field glasses.
On the horizon just 300 metres away, thick clouds of black smoke billowed from a burning beige Iraqi military truck, hit seconds earlier by a bomb dropped from a Tomcat.
To its left, three pick-ups suddenly screamed down the hill past the smoking hulk. They stopped, and the dozen Iraqis in civilian clothes who got out immediately opened fire on Kurdish peshmerga guerillas who had gathered on a rise to watch the show.
The peshmerga dived for cover into the tiny trenches left behind by the retreating Iraqis. The thump of incoming mortars shook the ground.
Below the Americans' foxhole, Wajih Barzani, the head of the Peshmerga Special Forces and brother of Massoud, roared in from the Kurdish capital of Irbil in a convoy of brand-new white Nissan Patrols to survey the scene and answer questions from reporters.
As mortars and smoke-markers shooshed overhead, Cmdr Barzani declared this operation against the 68th Division of the Fifth Iraqi Army to be the start of the northern front.
US plans to squeeze Saddam Hussein between two complimentary north-south operations have been delayed by weeks because the Turkish government refused to allow US troops to use its bases.
But a decision on Wednesday, announced during a visit to Ankara by the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, to allow supplies to cross the border 360 km north of Irbil, appears to have paid immediate dividends: the Special Forces directing yesterday's operation drove jeeps that were part of a convoy of 700 vehicles that crossed from Turkey the night before.
The Americans, now in command of the joint forces of the northern Kurdish warlords, had already directed three front-line operations against the Iraqis as they abandoned their positions and moved back to Mosul and Kirkuk, the strategic cities of the northern Iraqi plain, Cmdr Barzani said.
Jumping at the thud of a smoke-marker that landed nearby, Cmdr Barzani suggested that the impromptu press conference move behind a rise, where he said he expected the Iraqis to leave Ghazer before the night was through. "They are moving back to Mosul, to defend the city. Behind these mountains there are a lot of tanks, and in the city the Third and Fourth Armies each have 30,000 to 40,000 men, which will make it a difficult operation," he said.
The Iraqi tactics have traced a pattern in recent days. Front lines facing the peshmerga foot-soldiers have been abandoned as the Saddamite forces have begun pulling back towards Mosul and Kirkuk.
In the past three days, positions at Badarash and Gwar, facing Mosul, have been abandoned, as have positions in Chamchamal, Kifri and Altun Kopru, facing the oil centre of Kirkuk.
Each time, the Iraqis have successfully drawn the peshmerga troops after them, and stopped a kilometre ahead and opened up a barrage of armalite and mortar fire.
In each case, the attack has taken the peshmerga by surprise, forcing them to retreat, in some cases right back to their original positions.
At Kalak, the last checkpoint on the north-western highway out of Irbil towards Mosul, 35 km away, the story was no different.
The Iraqis began moving back from their positions as the day's light began to fade around 5 p.m. on Wednesday, said Sgt Ferhad Lawko Abdul Kharim, a Kalak peshmerga. They pulled 5 km back into tiny Alnathumiya village, a collection of mud-and-straw huts and animal pens populated by Arab Iraqis.
The Iraqi troops stopped here, Sgt Ferhad said, and began helping the residents to load what household goods and animals they could carry into cars and trucks so they could leave the village because they were convinced that the Kurds would kill them if they stayed.
"They left behind some vehicles, two pick-ups and a truck, because we came and tried to surround them as they were helping the villagers get out," said Sgt Ferhad.
"We didn't fight, we're under orders not to fight because we're now under the command of the Americans and have to wait for them to issue orders."
The battle for Ghazer began early in the morning, when Kurdish peshmerga guerilla fighters, standing on a ridge 300 metres outside the town and using binoculars to survey territory they thought was now under their control, came under sudden and fierce attack.
Machine-gun fire, followed by about 20 mortars, sent the peshmerga, whose name in Kurdish means "those who face death", into a chaotic frenzy as many fired back at the Iraqis, only to be screamed at by their commanders to "Stop firing. Stop firing."
The peshmerga held their fire, but only until the Iraqis opened up on them again.
The cool facade of the Americans, who now find themselves in command of a rebel ragtag army, faded. "This is a military operation," one of them yelled. "Stop firing!"
The Americans, who had spent the previous night dug in on a hillock about 500 metres behind the peshmerga near Alnathumiya, used their radios to call in "incoming fire" and moments later the airstrikes began. For the next six hours, the jets circled above Ghazer in pairs, their outline clearly visible against the white background of an overcast sky.
Every 20 minutes, they honed in on a target, dropping a payload which sent plumes of black smoke into the air, followed five seconds later by a massive boom.
Late in the afternoon after a lull in the American bombing, the Iraqis responded with canons and mortar fire. One shell landed in Kalak village killing two civilians. The American airstrikes began again after dark.