Northern front: Officials of the governing forces of Northern Iraq said yesterday the United States had landed thousands of troops in their territory bordering Turkey as part of preparations to open up a northern front against Saddam Hussein and secure the strategically vital oil cities of Mosul and Kirkuk. Lynne O'Donnell reports from Dolabakra in Northern Iraq
The reports that the Americans have quietly begun building a presence north of the Iraqi dictator's lines of defence in readiness for a ground assault stood in stark contrast to the massive show of force and firepower that is rolling across Iraq's southern flank from Kuwait.
Plans for the northern offensive had appeared thwarted by the Turkish parliament's decision last month not to allow the US to station troops at military bases in southeastern Turkey, abutting the Iraq border, and then, this week, to procrastinate on a promise of airspace access.
But officials of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which controls the western Kurdish zone of northern Iraq, indicated US troops were beginning to arrive in northern Iraq from bases in Kuwait.
The KDP officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said between 5,000 and 6,000 American soldiers had flown into the town of Bamerni, near the Turkish border north of the city of Dohuk.
If the reports, which could not be immediately confirmed, prove accurate, the allied operation to oust the Ba'athist forces from their defensive positions at the northern extreme of Saddam Hussein's area of power, could be expected to begin within days.
Northern Iraq represents a vital jumping-off point for the assault on Saddam's regime, allowing the alliance to ensnare his loyalist forces in a north-south pincer with forces that are moving en masse across the Kuwait border in the country's south.
The Pentagon had hoped to secure the use of Turkish bases - which Washington had already spent millions of dollars upgrading before the parliament in Ankara voted down the American request for entry - to prosecute its northern campaign against Saddam.
The facilities in Northern Iraq are far inferior to the military bases that dot Turkey's southeast.
Nevertheless, the Kurdish parties that control the region appear to have thrown open their territory to the Americans, a reflection of their eagerness to be rid of Saddam and reunite Iraq as a nation.
Work to clear a disused airstrip just outside the nearby city of Irbil was close to completion, militiamen guarding the strip said.
Peshmerga militiamen of the KDP guarding the airstrip in the Christian village of Ankawa, 10 minutes' drive outside Irbil, said work to clear rocks from the asphalted runway and cut back the lush grass on either side had been under way for the past six days. They said they had no details on when the Americans would begin arriving.
The KDP sources, however, said that Americans could be expected to begin arriving in Irbil from Kuwait within days.
Irbil, the capital of the predominantly Kurdish north, is about equidistant from the cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, both of which possess significant oil assets and represent the economic future of Iraq's northern regions.
Refugees fleeing Kirkuk have said oil wells there have been set with mines and booby traps in readiness for the American Special Forces groups that are expected to seal them as soon as possible.
Saddam's troops are also said to have dug trenches around the city and filled them with oil, ready to be torched as Ba'athist forces retreat towards Baghdad.
Reports were coming out of Mosul yesterday that a major munitions storage facility was alight after being bombed by allied forces on Thursday night.
Mr Mahmud Ashad Arsa Harki, leader of the Arbil faction of the powerful Kurdish Harki clan, said that the Ba'athist garrison outside Mosul had long been a target of British and American strategic bombing raids as part of the 12-year programme of protecting the north from Saddam's ambitions.
Sitting in the sunny reception room of his hilltop mansion, and surrounded by clansmen wearing black-and-white chequered headscarves, Mr Harki predicted an uprising in Mosul against the Saddam regime once the northern campaign is launched.
It was an "opportunity everyone in Mosul has been waiting for," Mr Harki said.
Frontline Peshmerga commanders said that teams of American Special Forces had spent the past two days inspecting frontline positions between Northern Iraq and Saddam-controlled territory.
KDP Special Forces Commander Mr Zamal Tofik, standing on the front line at Dolabakra, said: "They came here only to observe, they did not stay long, but they came to prepare."
As he spoke, Saddamist forces digging in behind the rolling green hills that stretch beyond a no-man's-land just a couple of kilometres away kept up a barrage of shelling, which Peshmerga militiamen said had begun three days ago.
"They are aiming at those villages," said First Lieut Said Kawa as he pointed towards the now-deserted hamlets of Kashgar and Khokhor, a few kilometres along the Kalak River that marks the border of liberated Iraq.
"Today, Saddam's troops have moved into no-man's-land to lay mines and dig holes to plant TNT.
"They've been mining and booby-trapping the area in front of their own lines," Lieut Said said as plumes of black smoke rose in the distance.
Local Peshmerga garrisons, like that under the control of Cdr Fars Mohammed that commands the hills and valleys of Aski Kalak down to the river, have been on alert since the first phase of the allied operation began on Thursday morning.
Tensions along the Kalak river spilled over yesterday when two European television crews were fired on from Saddam's posts opposite Al Quwayr. There were no serious injuries.