Reuters Posted online: Thursday, April 10, 2003 at 1354 hours IST
Chamchamal, April 10: Iraqi forces in the northern town of Khanaqin have retreated and the city has been occupied by Kurdish forces, Kurdish political officials told Reuters on Thursday.
"Khanaqin is finished," said Jutiar Nuri, an official at the Sulaimaniya-Democratic Organisation Bureau, a branch of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan which has controlled the areas north of Khanaqin, just next to the Iranian border.
Nuri said by telephone from Sulaimaniya that Bakhtiar Hekmat Mohammad Karim, the head of the Bureau and a Kurdish commander based near Kalar, had just called him from Khanaqin itself.
Bakhtiar did not have time to give him details as to the extent of fighting, if any, that was involved, Nuri added.
Khanaqin is around 120 km (75 miles) northeast of Baghdad. Its fall coincides with regular bombing from the air of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and Kurdish "peshmerga" fighters progressing towards the city of Mosul further to the northwest.
