Mosul-Based Iraqi Troops Said Having Surrendered

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, April 11, 2003

Mosul-Based Iraqi Troops Said Having Surrendered

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The first official surrenders from Iraqi troops are now happening in pockets of the country. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld confirmed Thursday that the Iraqi troops stationed in the country's third largest city of Mosul have surrendered.

Earlier reports quote Robert Waltemeyer, commander of a US special forces unit, as saying US forces were trying to arrange a surrender by Iraqi forces in Mosul, while a senior commander of Kurdish forces said the Iraqi forces had demanded US troops stop air raids and pardon Iraqi soldiers.

In Baghdad, US troops completed a cordon of the Iraqi capital late Thursday as they were expanding control of the city, where sporadic Iraqi resistance still lingered on.

At Qatar-based US Central Command's war headquarters, Major General Victor Renuart said the outer cordon in the vicinity of Baghdad was completed therefore surrounding the city. The major routes in and out of Baghdad were all blocked to prevent Iraqi reinforcement forces from moving in or senior Iraqi leaders from escaping.

Early Friday, US-led forces dropped six "smart bombs" on a home west of Baghdad which was the house of Saddam Hussein 's half brother who used to head the secret police.

After entering the city center of Baghdad to topple a giant statue of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, US troops continued their advances in many parts of the city. However, they encountered intermittent Iraqi resistance on the way. One US Marine was killed and at least three others seriously wounded in the downtown area Thursday night when a man strapped with explosives approached a Marine checkpoint and blew himself up.

On the same day, US Marines came under heavy fire from the Iraqi forces along the northern banks of the Tigris river in Baghdad. One US Marine soldier was killed and at least 20 others injured.

Fighting also raged near an oil refinery in southwestern Baghdad. It was reported that at least two dozen Iraqi fighters and civilians were killed on a road leading toward the international airport.

Meanwhile, looting surged and government buildings were set on fire across the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. It was reported that five ministries were on fire in the center of the city and looters pillaged the German embassy and the French cultural center.

In the north, Kurdish fighters entered the strategic oil center of Kirkuk without encountering Iraqi resistance, raising alarm among Turkish leaders, who vowed to intervene militarily if they did not withdraw from the city.

As agreed by the US government, Turkey was sending a group of observers to Kirkuk to ensure the Kurdish withdrawal from the city. Turkey is worried that the Kurdish control of the Iraqi north including the oil-rich Kirkuk could lead to the establishment of an independent Kurdish state, thus boosting the Kurdish separatist movement in its southeast.

Elsewhere in Iraq, US forces continued to move north towards Tikrit, Saddam's home town, 200 kilometres north of Baghdad, a US military spokesman said.

In the southern city of Basra, largely under British control since Monday, troops struggled to contain looting, killings and petty crime as the locals rampaged through the city unsupervised.

In the central city of Najaf, Iraq's prominent Shiite leader Abdul Maguid Al-Khoei was assassinated Thursday. Another Shiite cleric royal to Saddam was also killed. This was the first known political assassination in Iraq following the collapse of the Saddam regime on Wednesday.

Also on Thursday, in a televised joint speech to the Iraqi people, U.S. President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the country will not be run by Britain, the United States, or the United Nations, but the people of Iraq. US Secretary of State Colin Powell noted in a phone converation with his Jordanian counterpart that the United Nations will play a vital role in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq.

According to the last figures from the US military, the number of casualties mounted as the Iraq war entered its 23rd day. 136 US and British soldiers were killed and 11 others were missing. The estimate of Iraqi troop deaths stands at more than 2,300. As for the civilian casulties, it was reported that at least 1250 Iraqis were killed so far and more than 5,000 wounded.

Meanwhile, Iraqi people are fleeing the country in large numbers. Some 100,000 Iraqi refugees have reached the border with western Iran. Tehran has vowed to set up refugee camps in the "no man's land" near the border with Iraq. It has established 10 camps at border points, capable of accommodating 400,000 refugees.

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