Tactical withdrawal by Iraqi troops

ABBAS ALI was jubilant when the northern Iraq frontlines moved.

He quickly got his tractor and rumbled to abandoned Iraqi army positions around Kirkuk, hoping to get some loot that could help him rebuild his house in the oil-rich city that he was forced to leave 10 years ago.

But what he found left him sensing that it may take quite a while before he and his fellow Kurds can advance any further, even though one of the north's most prized cities is now within sight. "They took everything. They didn't leave very much behind," said the 50-year-old, as he and is cousins picked through a network of hill-top bunkers and bases around this abandoned garrison town.

When the Iraqi army quit their frontline positions, fighters from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) were able to advance more than 20 kilometres (12 miles) towards Kirkuk.

One local PUK commander even proclaimed that the Iraqi army was "finished." But a tour with Ali of the empty posts here pointed to a well-managed tactical withdrawal, with the Iraqi army mirroring the movements in the south where the cities are defended and posts vulnerable to air strikes are vacated.

Few weapons were left behind. Documents were taken or burned. And booby traps, anti-tank mines and mud walls blocking roads were waiting for advancing Kurds.

Furthermore, the PUK had thought that the old frontlines here were held by conscripts and small intelligence units maintaining discipline. Instead they have turned up documents belonging to the Saddam Fedayeen, the militia that is causing US and British troops so many problems in the south.

And many of the fighters in the regular units once camped here were found to be volunteers from the Sunni Arab centre of the country Saddam Hussein's power base or members of the al-Quds (Jerusalem) militia, PUK intelligence sources said. Given that only a tiny handful defected during last week's pullback, these troops are now assumed to be inside Kirkuk preparing for a tough defence of the city. A PUK source estimated more than 2,000 Fedayeen alone.

Officials from the PUK's erstwhile rival, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), said they had got the same impression when they advanced into abandoned positions northwest of Kirkuk.

Initial jubilation over the gains has therefore given way to a realisation that as in the south, troops here are in it for the long haul if they want to wrest control of Kirkuk and Mosul, strategic centres in part of Iraq which accounts for one-third of the country's oil production.

The Kurds have very good reasons for stalling their advance here. Firstly, there are only some 2,000 lightly equipped US troops in the north compared to the 62,000 soldiers with heavy armour they had hoped to send in through Turkey.

This severely limits the scope of operations that can be conducted against a conventional army and irregular militia defending an urban centre.