Anarchy replaces Saddam in Mosul

Residents burned buildings and plundered banks, grabbing wads of money, as Iraq’s third city descended into anarchy today after US and Kurdish forces swept into Mosul and Saddam Hussein’s troops fled.

Iraqi dinars littered the streets as townspeople sacked the central bank and Mosul University’s library, with its rare manuscripts.

Appeals blared from the mosque minarets implored people to stop destroying the city. People waved flags of the Kurdish Democratic Party.

The US special forces commander in northern Iraq, Lieutenant Colonel. Robert Waltemeyer, led a convoy of 35 to 40 vehicles along with hundreds of Kurdish peshmerga fighters into the city.

Residents shouted in English at passing special forces: “Why are you late? Why are you late?”

Waltemeyer said the Iraqi Army’s 5th Corps, the main Iraqi force in northern Iraq, had “melted into the population.” No formal surrender was signed, he said.

“We offered capitulation, but while we were south of Dohuk this afternoon, the Iraqi army evaporated so there has been no formal capitulation or ceasefire,” Waltemeyer said.

A spokesman for Central Command in Qatar had said earlier that the 5th Corps, about 30,000 strong before the war, had surrendered.

Turkish officials, alarmed by the Kurdish moves in Mosul and Kirkuk, the northern oil capital, said they were reviewing plans to increase military presence in northern Iraq, An estimated 5,000 Turkish troops are deployed mainly along the Turkish-Iraqi border.

US commanders said Iraqi forces might be planning a last stand in Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s birthplace of Tikrit, the last major population centre still in Iraqi hands, south-west of Kirkuk.

In Mosul, banknotes littered the street. One person was seen carrying a pack of Iraqi dinars. Another had what appeared to be stacks of bound packages of Iraqi dinars stuffed under his T-shirt.

Gunmen, apparently Kurdish fighters, arrived at the bank and started swinging their rifles and firing into the air to force looters to leave.

“What is happening shouldn’t happen,” said one man of the looting. “This is barbaric. This is not Saddam’s money. This is the nation’s and the people’s money.”

A third man complained about the looting of the bank: ”This is people’s money. I have an account in the bank. All my money is gone.”

One man climbed to the roof of a building to dismantle an antenna.

At Saddam General Hospital, three of the five ambulances were stolen. Armed men, described as Kurds, tried to enter the hospital, but the staff managed to hold them off. Jumhuriya Hospital said all eight of its ambulances were taken at gunpoint.

“There is absolutely no security. The medical staff is scared for their safety,” said Saddam General staff physician Dr Darfar Ibrahim Hasan. “The city has fallen into anarchy.”

After evening prayers, Mosul residents came out of mosques following evening prayers and began to take up arms and stop cars filled with looted goods. Some clashed with the looters seized the pillaged property, taking it to neighbourhood mosques.

Waltemeyer said more special forces would be arriving in Mosul to help establish control.

“In the morning, as the sun rises, you will see a lot more US troops,” he said.

In Kirkuk, Kurdish fighters roamed unchallenged through the streets. Looters emptied government buildings down to the bathroom fixtures and statues of Saddam lay broken in the dust.

South of Kirkuk, thousands of young Iraqi soldiers walked toward Baghdad, making their way home after abandoning their positions. The unarmed men, some of them barefoot, wore civilian clothes and carried little or nothing Some said it might take seven days to reach their home towns in the south.

The capture of Kirkuk left Iraq’s second biggest oil region almost fully intact. Coalition leaders had feared retreating Iraqi forces might set the fields ablaze, but only one well fire raged near Kirkuk.

The United States had asked Kurdish forces not to enter Kirkuk for fear of alarming Turkey. But when the Kurds went in anyway, US special operations forces were sent in to accompany them and later were joined by the paratroopers.

The Turks fear that Iraq’s Kurds, emboldened by control of the northern oil fields, will set up an independent state and inspire separatist sentiments among Turkey’s Kurdish population.

Jalal Talabani, leader of one of the factions whose forces entered Kirkuk, told Turkish television that all Kurdish fighters would leave by tonight.