Mosul falls after Iraqi army surrenders 

Baghdad - Kurdish and US forces took control of Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, without a fight after commanders of the 5th Corps of the Iraqi army agreed a surrender.

Captain Frank Thorp, a US Central Command spokesman, said: "We are confirming that the Iraqi 5th Corps in and around Mosul have agreed to a cease–fire. Right now we're in the process of deciding if they'll become PoWS or go home or what their eventual outcome will be."

He acknowledged there may still be some Iraqi forces willing to fight in and around Mosul, but said it was "very significant" that an entire Iraqi corps had surrendered.

He said the commander of the 5th Corps had communicated his intention to surrender to U.S. troops on the ground.

Kurdish military leaders said remnants of the Iraqi army had offered to surrender if they were granted amnesty and if coalition bombing stopped.

Townspeople plundered the central bank, grabbing wads of money and throwing bills in the air. Mosul University's library, with its rare manuscripts, was also sacked, despite appeals blared from the mosque minarets to the people to stop destroying their city, the Arab–language TV network Al–Jazeera reported. People waved flags of the Kurdish Democratic Party.

Gunmen, apparently Kurdish fighters, arrived at the bank and started swinging their rifles and firing into the air to force looters to leave.

People were seen stamping on pictures of Saddam Hussein and cheering.

US Marines shot dead two children at a checkpoint in Nasiriyah early this morning. The incident took place at 6.30am local time, when a minivan failed to slow in its approach to a military checkpoint. US soldiers reportedly gave repeated warnings, but when the vehicle maintained speed, feared they were coming under suicide attack and opened fire.

Two children died and nine people were injured in the incident. Checkpoints have been a regular sight in Nasiriyah for the past two weeks. Four soldiers were injured yesterday in a suicide attack.

Meanwhile in Kirkuk, which was captured by Kurdish fighters yesterday, Jalal Talabani, leader of one of the factions whose forces entered the city, told Turkish television that all Kurdish fighters would leave by the end of today.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said he had promised Turkey the Kurds would pull out entirely and be replaced by US troops, easing Turkish fears that the Kurds could use Kirkuk as a step toward an independent state, perhaps inspiring separatists among Kurds in Turkey.

Hoshyar Zebari, the Kurdistan Democratic Party's head of external relations, said the "understanding" with the US-led coalition would be honoured.

"There was an understanding that there should not be any unilateral move by any side in to the city centre," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

Mr Zebari said the KDP did not accept that Kurds should be in the minority in these cities. "The fate of these cities have to be decided jointly by all the communities, all the people, who have lived together and co-existed, not their fate to be dictated by a foreign power whoever that be," he said.

The KDP wants "some form of devolution that you have in the United Kingdom for Scotland and Wales", he continued.

In the city, Kurdish fighters roamed unchallenged through the streets, looters emptied government buildings down to the bathroom fixtures and statues of Saddam lay broken in the dust.

The US military issued a most–wanted list of 55 former leaders in Saddam Hussein's regime to be pursued, captured or killed.

The list, in the form of a "deck of cards" with pictures of the wanted figures, was distributed to the thousands of U.S. troops in the field to help them find the senior members of the government. It also was being put on posters and handbills for the Iraqi public, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said.

Gen. Brooks did not identify figures on the list, except to suggest they included Saddam and his minister of information, Mohammed Saeed al–Sahhaf.

"The key list has 55 individuals who may be pursued, killed or captured, and the list does not exclude leaders who may have already been killed or captured," Gen. Brooks said.

He said that US forces had found and destroyed five small airplanes covered by camouflage netting along Highway 1 near the northern city of Tikrit, Saddam's birthplace.

Allied warplanes bombed an Iraqi intelligence complex early today occupied by Saddam Hussein's half brother, a close adviser who allegedly helped stash millions of dollars abroad for the Iraqi leader.

US Central Command said forces launched six satellite-guided bombs at a building near Ramadi, about 60 miles west of Baghdad, in an attack on Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti.

Al-Tikriti was allegedly the chief organiser of a clandestine group of companies and funds handling the Iraqi leader's wealth, according to the Coalition for International Justice.

He was chief of Saddam's secret police in the 1980s and then Iraq's UN ambassador in Geneva for nine years.

About 200 Iraqis ransacked their embassy in the Iranian capital this morning, smashing furniture, windows and photographs of Saddam Hussein.

"No Saddam! No US puppet regime! We want freedom!" the exiles chanted as they stormed through the embassy, breaking almost everything in sight.

Police moved in and arrested some 60 exiles.

Police sealed the embassy compound in Val-i-Asr Street, north Tehran. The detainees were driven out in two police vans, some flashing the V-for-victory sign as they left.

Women police officers went into the embassy, apparently to deal with the female Iraqi exiles. There were no reports of injuries as the police brought the situation under control. -- Independent News

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