Saddam loyalists hold out in Baghdad, Kurds seize Kirkuk

Saddam loyalists hold out in Baghdad, Kurds seize Kirkuk

Mike Collett-White and Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Reuters, Kirkuk/Baghdad

Kurdish fighters took the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk on
Thursday as U.S. troops fought die-hard Saddam Hussein loyalists
in Baghdad.

In the holy central city of Najaf, Iraqi Shi'ite leader Abdul
Majid al-Khoei was stabbed to death in an attack in the Imam Ali
Mosque, a member of his family foundation told Reuters.

A day after rejoicing Iraqis greeted U.S. forces in Baghdad
following the collapse of Saddam's once-fearsome rule there were
signs that the way forward for Iraq may be difficult.

The murder of Abdel Majid and an aide, which some blamed on
Saddam loyalists and others on infighting, is sure to raise
tensions among Iraq's majority Shi'ite population.

Majid was a close aide of Iraq's leading Shi'ite cleric Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who called on the population last week
not to hinder the U.S. and British invasion.

"An hour ago we talked to the persons who were with him at the
time of the incident. They said he was martyred by treacherous
hands," said Jawad al-Khoei, Abdul Majid's nephew.

Turkey greeted the news of the Kurdish advance in the north
with alarm, immediately announcing it would send observers to the
oil hub Kurds consider their capital. The White House quickly
announced U.S. forces would take control of Kirkuk.

In Baghdad, one U.S. Marine was killed and more than 20
wounded in a four-hour battle with Saddam loyalists firing from
the Imam al-Adham Mosque on the east bank of the Tigris river.

Elsewhere in the capital, looters swarmed a villa belonging to
Saddam's deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz, taking everything they
could carry but leaving behind the complete works of Saddam, a
book by former U.S. President Richard Nixon, and The Godfather
Mafia novels of Mario Puzo.

Many of the looters were from the Saddam City area, home to
about two million impoverished Shi'ite Muslims. Asked why he was
robbing the house, one man wordlessly pointed to his open mouth
to indicate he was hungry.

As U.S. and British forces hunted for Saddam and his aides,
President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair recorded a
statement meant to reassure Iraqis they would control their own
future.

Some Iraqis criticized the Americans for failing to check
looting in Baghdad, and warned that U.S. forces could face a
popular uprising if they stayed in the country too long.

Mehdi al-Aibi Mansur, a Shi'ite merchant who said he was glad
Saddam's era was over, said: "People are no longer
afraid...People will not be afraid to rise up against the
Americans."

The mood in the north was triumphant. Hundreds of "peshmerga"
fighters flooded into Kirkuk virtually without a fight. Iraqi
Kurds consider the city, source of 40 percent of Iraq's oil
revenue, their capital. Turkomans claim it as theirs.

"It's under control," Mam Rostam, a commander from the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), told Mike Collett-White.
"It's the first time I've been happy in 50 years," said one
exulted Kurd, Abu Sardar Mostafa.

The White House said U.S. forces will take control of Iraq's
Kirkuk region.

A dozen U.S. tanks and other armored vehicles were seen
rolling towards Iraq's third city of Mosul, making their debut on
the northern front in the war, now in its fourth week.

U.S. L. Mark Kitchens said elements of Iraq's Republican Guard
were gathering around Mosul and Tikrit, Saddam's birthplace and
power base north of Baghdad.

U.S. planes were bombing those formations, he added.

Kitchens said more fierce battles could lie ahead. "There
continues to be resistance and the overall objective of bringing
down the regime has not yet been achieved. But it will be."

U.S. planes, meanwhile, bombed positions held by non-Iraqi
Arab fighters in the western Mansur district of the capital,
close to an Iraqi secret police building, a Reuters correspondent
reported.

Fighting also erupted in the Doura district housing an oil
refinery in southwest Baghdad.

Reuters cameraman Ahmed Bahaddou later saw U.S. troops
collecting 21 bodies, apparently Iraqi soldiers and civilians, on
a road leading from Doura to the international airport. Witnesses
said other corpses had already been picked up.

The United States and Britain, which have yet to declare
victory in the war, sought to reassure Iraqis.

The United States has appointed retired Lieutenant General Jay
Garner to run civilian affairs in Iraq alongside the U.S. and
British military presence.

Bush and Blair promised their troops would leave Iraq as soon
as a new government was established to replace the interim
authority which is due to take over from the military.