- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S.
forces battled to restore order to Iraqi cities on Saturday as gangs of
looters stripped government buildings, ransacked stores and pillaged Baghdad's
famed antiquities museum.
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- One week after American soldiers smashed their way into
the Iraqi capital, Marines set up round-the-clock patrols and said they
planned to impose a night curfew in certain neighborhoods to check the
rampant lawlessness.
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- Anarchy and violence also traumatized the northern cities
of Mosul and Kirkuk, which were seized almost unopposed by Kurdish fighters
over the past 48 hours.
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- "If the Americans are liberating us, let them restore
order because this has been as bad as any two days of my life with Saddam,"
said Jassem Mohammed, a Turkmen butcher in Kirkuk.
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- U.S. military commanders remained focused on wrapping
up the war, sending planes to pound Saddam Hussein's home base, Tikrit
-- the only important town still holding out in the 24-day war.
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- Lead elements of the powerful U.S. 4th Infantry Division
also moved into Iraq on Saturday, as the army started to reposition their
ground forces ahead of an expected assault on Tikrit, some 110 miles north
of Baghdad.
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- In the capital, looters ransacked the Iraqi National
Museum, smashing display cases to grab treasures dating back thousands
of years to the dawn of civilization in Mesopotamia.
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- "They have looted or destroyed 170,000 items of
antiquity....They were worth billions of dollars," said deputy director
Nabhal Amin, weeping openly.
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- In some well-to-do neighborhoods, locals formed armed
vigilante groups to protect their personal property, kicking and punching
anyone suspected of plundering goods.
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- A group of protesters demonstrated in the city center
over the breakdown in law and order. "The Americans replaced the regime
and security is part of their responsibility," said Haidir Shawk,
a 58-year-old engineer.
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- KURDS STILL IN KIRKUK
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- In the north, Kurdish "peshmerga" fighters
tried to impose some order in the oil hub of Kirkuk, which they took on
Thursday amid scenes of wild jubilation, checking cars coming in and out
of the city in search of suspected looters and their bounty.
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- But local Arabs and Turks said the Kurds themselves were
guilty of abuses -- a potentially dangerous development in an area riven
with ethnic tensions.
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- "I'm liberated now? What's been liberated? The Kurds
came and stole anything they could get their hands on, killed, pulled people
out of their cars," said Riyadh Mustafa, an Arab.
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- There were also unconfirmed reports of violent Arab-Kurd
clashes in Iraq's third city, Mosul, which fell to the peshmerga on Friday
after an entire Iraqi army corps surrendered.
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- Turkey is terrified that Iraqi Kurds want to claim Kirkuk
as capital of an independent state, fanning separatism among its own Kurds.
The Kurds say they will withdraw from the city by the end of Saturday,
handing over control to nearby U.S. troops.
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- However, by Saturday afternoon only a few dozen U.S.
soldiers were seen on the streets -- no-where near enough to secure the
city of some 700,000 people.
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- There was evidence that the invading forces were shifting
some attention toward administration, with U.S. officials making plans
for a meeting of local politicians in Iraq early next week to discuss the
country's future government.
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- British troops in Basra said they hoped to start patrols
with local police officers within 48 hours and Reuters correspondents in
the southern city said on Saturday there was no evidence of the mass-looting
witnessed earlier in the week.
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- U.S. officials sought to play down the anarchy going
on elsewhere, saying it was an outpouring of passions pent-up during Saddam's
24-year iron rule.
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- "We believe that in due time this will settle down,"
said Brigadier General Vincent Brooks at Central Command.
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- TIKRIT UNDER ATTACK
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- U.S. bombers pounded positions around Tikrit on Saturday,
preparing the way for an eventual ground assault.
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- Initial elements of the United States' 30,000-strong
4th Infantry Division moved into Iraq from Kuwait on Saturday -- the only
U.S. division in the area yet to see any action.
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- U.S. sources have indicated that the Division will be
sent to Tikrit, where senior supporters of Saddam are believed to be preparing
a last stand. Some people have suggested that Saddam himself might be hiding
there, although others believe he might have died in a bombing raid on
Baghdad last week.
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- Brooks said that should U.S. forces take Tikrit, it would
not necessarily signal the end of the war in Iraq.
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- "Tikrit is not the only place where we believe there
is a presence of regime forces or regime leaders or regime activities.
So there would still be work to be done beyond that," he told a daily
briefing in Qatar.
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- U.S. efforts to capture top government officials have
so far failed to net a single person. U.S.-led forces have also not yet
found any Iraqi's alleged cache of weapons of mass destruction.
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- Humanitarian officials have warned that widespread disorder
in Iraqi cities threatens to snarl delivery of badly needed aid, while
the Red Cross said Baghdad's medical system had all but collapsed due to
combat damage, looting and fear of anarchy.
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- Two U.S. C-130 transport planes flew 20 tonnes of medical
supplies from Kuwait to Baghdad late Friday -- among the first equipment
and medicines to reach the city since Saddam's fall.
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- U.S. forces took control of the last known Baghdad stronghold
of Saddam loyalists, where volunteers from across the Arab world had been
holding out for three days.
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- As tanks took up their positions, looters could clearly
be seen carrying computers and office furniture out of the nearby information
and foreign ministries.
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