Kirkuk Rises to Uneasy Freedom

The cotton factory was burning and ethnic tensions were rising Friday as 4,000 U.S. troops began arriving in Kirkuk, where the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s government has left a skyline streaked in smoke and streets crowded with looters and militias.

The U.S. military’s mission is to restore order and prevent Turkey from using the unrest to send troops into the city to protect a minority population of Turkmen. The Turkmens, who share a lineage with Turks, say they have been targets of looting by armed bands, including Kurdish fighters who entered Kirkuk as the city fell Thursday.

Northern Iraq’s two main Kurdish organizations, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP, ordered their militias out of Kirkuk on Friday afternoon. There was a noticeable decrease in the number of pickup trucks ferrying Kurdish fighters through the streets, but Turkey’s insistence that Turkmens were being abused troubled Kurdish and American officials.

“Everyone’s concern is not to let things get any worse,” said a U.S. Special Forces commander. “I don’t think it’s bad, but it’s about perceptions.”

Looting and arson have been incessant in recent days. Young men and sometimes families troll the streets in taxis and tractors, enter government buildings and remove maps, furniture, televisions, clothes, plumbing and computers. Members of the various ethnic groups in Kirkuk formed a council Friday to impose civil law, and by nightfall Kurdish police officers from nearby Sulaymaniyah were working Kirkuk’s streets.

The fall of Kirkuk came quicker than anticipated by U.S. forces. That left a security vacuum and drew criticism from at least one Kurdish official, who accused the Americans of shortsightedness. With a scant U.S. military presence on the streets, the city is enmeshed in a dangerous political game as armed Turkmen and Kurdish parties march through neighborhoods chanting slogans.

“The Americans didn’t think about the day after liberation,” said Faraydoon Abdul Qader, the PUK interior minister. “They didn’t coordinate with us.... In all towns [throughout Iraq] this was their mistake.”

The U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade has moved into three bases in the area, including the Iraqi air force headquarters on the fringes of Kirkuk. Standing under a palm tree near an abandoned armored personnel carrier, Iraqis gawked and waved at the American soldiers guarding the entrance of the headquarters. Some laughed as the soldiers allowed five boys who were carrying an air conditioner looted from the base to pass through the barbed-wire checkpoint and into traffic. Minutes later, a man carrying a child with a bloody left leg was turned away when he asked for a doctor. He then flagged down a taxi.

The mission U.S. soldiers face in Kirkuk is tricky. The city has long been coveted by Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs. Hussein’s ethnic cleansing campaign forced more than 100,000 Kurds to leave Kirkuk over the last decade. With Iraqi forces gone, Kurds want to reclaim the city and its 300 oil wells. That is a problem for Turkey, which claims a historical right to the city and wants a share of the oil reserves. Protecting the rights of the Turkmen, some of whose groups are funded by Turkey, is Ankara’s reason for influencing the future of Kirkuk.

The Bush administration has warned Ankara to keep Turkish troops out of northern Iraq for fear of triggering battles with the Kurds. The U.S. has assured Turkey that American troops -- not Kurdish militias -- will protect the city and secure the oil wells. U.S. commanders have asked the Kurdish parties to remove their militias from hospitals and government buildings in Kirkuk.

After a meeting of Turkey’s top civilian and military leaders Friday, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said the government was satisfied that the Americans were taking over Kirkuk, nearby Mosul and the oil fields near both cities.

“There is no need at this time for intervention on our part,” he said, emphasizing that the option remains open.

About 40,000 Turkish troops are massed along the Iraqi border about 150 miles northwest of Kirkuk. In threatening an incursion into Iraq, Turkey’s leaders in recent weeks have emphasized their fear that Kurds would seize Kirkuk and Mosul and use their oil wealth to finance a breakaway state hostile to Turkey.

But as they watched televised images of looting in both cities, Turkish officials issued a new warning Friday, saying the Turkish army might be needed to prevent large numbers of unarmed Kurds from moving there, evicting the Turkmens and tipping the ethnic balance.

Turkmens interviewed this week suggested that they did not feel a kinship with Turkey but were in favor of the Turkish troops temporarily coming in to protect them from what they view as rising Kurdish nationalism and looting. Kirkuk’s neighborhoods bristle with political identity as parties parade through streets carrying flags and Kalashnikovs rifles.

“The situation in Kirkuk is not good,” said Ali Mahdi Salid, a deputy director with the Turkmen Ayli party, whose headquarters is guarded by young men with rifles. “There was no need for Kurdish fighters to come into town. The Kurds are going to houses and stealing from us. We want American and Turkish forces to come and keep the peace.... Inside Kirkuk, the Turkmens and the Kurds are brothers, but I don’t want Kurds coming in from the outside.”

The blue-and-white flags of the Turkmen Ayli party flew along dingy Tjeenjdid Street in Kirkuk.

The marchers were angry about power outages, lack of water and looting. They were poor men in a changed city. They were insecure. Some were armed. They chanted for the strength of the Turkmen community.

“We are still here like in a prison,” Tarik Mohammed said. “Due to the bad security here, we would like Turkish troops to come and protect us. But then I want the Turks to go away. I want the Americans to go away, too. It’s only right now we are afraid.”

Blacksmith Hassan Ali agreed: “Whoever can protect us and bring us electricity, let them come.”

The men turned and marched into the dusk as the cotton factory burned in the distance, and less than one mile away, Kurdish men carrying rifles raised the flags of their own parties.

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Times staff writer Richard Boudreaux and special correspondent Amberin Zaman in Ankara contributed to this report.