The northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Kirkuk have been besieged by troops loyal to the Iraqi regime. They are preparing for an allied attack by pulling back from their northern front lines to surround the cities with tanks and heavy weaponry, and are reinforcing with death squads sent from the south. Lynne O'Donnell in Irbil, northern Iraq
For the past two weeks, residents of both cities have been prevented from leaving by Saddamite soldiers who have thrown a ring of steel around the boundaries and have shot and killed people caught trying to flee.
Many homes in Kirkuk are now hosting soldiers of Saddam's forces, and many Arab men have been given Kalashnikov rifles in an effort to intimidate non-Arab residents, especially Kurds, who are thought likely to rise up against the regime in the event of an allied offensive.
Both cities are said to be ringed with tanks, especially on their northern flanks facing the free Kurdish zone, where Kurdish guerilla fighters are now under US command. Anti-aircraft guns, mortars and other heavy artillery weapons have been placed on roofs throughout the residential areas of both cities. Villages on the cities' outskirts have been cleared under government order, and the residents sent deeper into the surrounding mountains.
Troops are also reported to have set landmines around oil wells, and to have dug trenches in various parts of the cities and filled them with oil, ready to be torched.
This portrait of cities beset by terror and intimidation has emerged in recent days, pieced together from a variety of sources, including a Kurdish peshmerga guerilla who spent 10 days secretly scouring Kirkuk and the surrounding countryside to gather strategic information.
His report concurs with those of residents who fled before the roads were sealed, or who have since managed to sneak past checkpoints by night.
Soldiers who have deserted their posts, and people who are trapped in the cities but remain in touch with relatives outside Saddam-controlled territory, have helped complete the jigsaw.
Kurdish officials, including the international relations director of the Kurdish Democratic Party, Mr Hoshyar Zebari, have reported that irregular soldiers in the cities have been sandwiched between squadrons of Fedayeen fighters - believed to be ready to fight to the death for Saddam - and Republic Guard troop battalions.
Mr Zebari said death squads had also been enlisted to ensure that residents' "loyalty" was maintained at gunpoint.
"In every home in Kirkuk, whether it is Arab or Kurdish, each has five soldiers living with them. One is from the Baath Party, there to monitor the other four, and to make sure no one in the family leaves," said Mr Wahab Siamend Kadir (48), after returning from an intelligence-gathering trip to Kirkuk.
Soldiers guarding the outskirts of the city shoot anyone who tries to leave, he said. "Last week two Arabs and a Kurd were arrested when they were caught with American dollars and a two-way radio; they were accused of being spies and taken away, no one knows where.
"All Arab men thought old enough to fight have been given Kalashinokovs. This has put pressure on the Kurds and created a lot of tension between the two communities. The Kurdish people are very frightened, and you can feel the tension in the streets, in the markets. People are still going out to buy food, but the situation is very tense."
Mr Wahab said "a great force" of tanks had surrounded the city, and was especially built up on its northern flank facing the Kurdish zone. "There are tanks on the road from Qoshtapa to Kirkuk, in the village of Altun Kopru, over the ridge," he said, referring to front-line villages that have been abandoned by Iraqi troops within the past few days.
"After the Iraqis withdraw, they protect their lines with tanks and weapons, and they are preparing to defend the city."
One man who fled 10 days ago into the Kurdish village of Chamchamal reported the execution of 65 people, all Kurds, who had been caught trying to leave Kirkuk.
Mosul and Kirkuk, which sit on a vast ocean of oil that surges beneath Iraq's northern plain, are considered key objectives in the allied effort to remove Saddam.
The region is a major centre for the production of oil - Kirkuk alone has known reserves that account for around 7 per cent of the global total - and natural gas.
The importance of Mosul, with about 1.5 million people, and Kirkuk, with around 750,000, to all parties to this war - and to non-players such as Turkey - puts them at the nexus of the coming battle for the north.
Control of the northern oilfields would bring this part of the country, which includes the Kurdish zones protected for the past 12 years by the British and US no-fly zones, the economic security it has been denied by the dictator's regime.
One of Turkey's concerns has been the possibility that Kurds would attempt to take control of Kirkuk and Mosul in order to harness the oil wealth that could fuel a bid for independence.
The arrival in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq of US troops, who have established a logistical operations centre and field hospital at an air base outside the regional capital, Irbil, has helped to calm this potentially volatile situation. The Kurds have promised to stay within the no-fly-zone parameters and to move forward only under US command.
While US troops have been on the ground in northern Iraq for months - with Special Forces and Delta Force units conducting regular sorties across the Iraqi lines - the arrival of thousands of army paratroopers and air force specialists was followed within days by the sudden withdrawal of Iraqi troops from their nearby front-line positions.
The commander of the Peshmerga Special Forces in the eastern sector of the protected north, Cmdr Wajih Barzani, said Iraq's Third and Fourth Armies each had up to 40,000 men in and around Mosul, backed with "lots of tanks". Over the past week, Iraqi troops have retreated from long-held and well-fortified defensive posts at Chamchamal, Altun Kopri, Qoshtapa and Kifri, facing Kirkuk, and from Badarash and the final ridge at Kalak, facing Mosul.
Kurdish leaders describe these sudden troop movements as tactical, an opinion borne out by evidence on the ground. While deserters said an unrelenting week-long allied bombing campaign had profoundly shaken front-line morale, the decision to abandon the posts did not appear to have been taken rashly.
At Badarash, the Iraqi retreat was combined with an ambush that left at least one peshmerga dead and about 10 wounded.
The delay in pulling together the northern front appears to have given the Iraqis time to reinforce the key northern objectives from the south in readiness for battles that are likely to see the Americans, with the hardy but ill-equipped peshmerga by their sides, drawn into a long and bitter urban battle for control of Mosul and Kirkuk.