US special forces fired on as they enter Mosul

A FIRST contingent of US special forces made its way into the centre of the main northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Friday and was greeted with sniper fire, an AFP correspondent reported.

Eleven jeeps carrying dozens of US troops reached Mosul from the Dahuk road, followed by around 300 members of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Peshmerga fighters.

They drove through a city whose streets were empty after being devastated by a day of looting after if fell to coalition-backed Kurdish fighters earlier Friday.

The US and Kurdish troops went to the home of Sheikh Ibrahim Attallah al-Juburi, who heads Iraq's most powerful tribe, and then reached a government building from which they hastily withdrew after coming under sniper fire.

Mosul, located 450km north of Baghdad, is an Arab-majority enclave of 1.5 million inhabitants in the mostly Kurdish north surrounded by oil fields.

The capture of Mosul came after Iraqi forces signed a ceasefire, US commanders said, leaving Saddam Hussein's ancestral powerbase of Tikrit as his last major holdout.

With the surrender of the Iraqis, people whose allegiances were unclear started driving though the city, waving guns and shooting out car windows.

Townspeople plundered the central bank, grabbing wads of money and throwing bills in the air. Mosul University library, with its rare manuscripts, was also sacked, despite appeals blared from the mosque minarets to the people to stop destroying their city, the Arab TV network al-Jazeera reported.

At Saddam General Hospital, three of the five ambulances were stolen and armed men, described as Kurds, tried to enter the hospital, but the staff managed to hold them off.

Trails of black smoke rose from different parts of Mosul's low-slung skyline.

A state bank, the Rashid Bank, was on fire, along with the government printing office and several Ba’ath Party offices.

Mosul is about two-thirds Arab. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority, and the city also includes ethnic Turks.

As the northern cities fell into coalition hands, thousands of young Iraqi soldiers abandoned their positions and walked south towards Baghdad on Friday, making their way home on a highway in the strong sun.