In Iraq's north, fears that disorder could spur ethnic strife

MOSUL, IRAQ - His weekend in Mosul, the looting turned to killing.

Kurds and Arabs fought each other in a city without order, leaving perhaps two dozen people dead, although precise numbers were impossible to obtain. The chaos followed the pullout of Iraqi forces and authorities late last week and the absence of any new force to take control.

The flash of bloodletting in Iraq's third-largest city - which seemed to derive both from the chaotic atmosphere and longstanding ethnic tensions - suggests that it will not take much in some Iraqi communities for the theft of property to degenerate into the taking of lives.

Standing in the emergency bay of the Republican Hospital here on Saturday, Walid Haderi, an Arab Iraqi, was shouting with rage as ambulances brought in the dead and wounded. The Kurdish militiamen in the city "took every new car," he yells. "They killed everyone."

Kurds and Arabs have sometimes clashed in Iraq. In the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, the Iraqi government has long sought to "Arabize" the oil-rich region by evicting Kurds, Turkmens, and other groups and replacing them with Iraqi Arabs. This is one reason why Arabs in these cities fear what "liberation" will mean, particularly if it is accompanied by the heavy-handed presence of Kurdish political parties.

A doctor at the hospital counted four dead civilians and scores of injuries on Saturday and more than 100 civilian casualties - including an undetermined number of dead - the day before.

But even as Mr. Haderi shouted, small groups of the several hundred US troops newly deployed in the city were mounting some of their first patrols. The local US commander, Lt. Col. Robert Waltemeyer, was working to have local leaders participate in appeals for calm and the reestablishment of municipal governance. He imposed a 10 p.m. to 6 p.m. curfew.

One Muslim preacher, Tariq Hamdoun, said Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, whose militiamen vastly outnumber the US troops on the streets in Mosul, had issued a shoot-on-sight order against looters and those engaged in violence. Mr. Hamdoun and other religious leaders made appeals for calm from loudspeakers and pulpits and local residents took up arms to protect their neighborhoods.

By Sunday afternoon, the violence and disorder seemed to be abating, though one US soldier was injured when a gunshot penetrated his vehicle.

Some of the people at the hospital Saturday were more disgusted than calmed by the US show of force. "I blame the US for the entire situation," said Zaid al-Tahi, a physician in the intensive care unit. "The US pushed in the [Kurdish militias]."

Others were more resentful at the US officials for not deploying forces in sufficient numbers to control the city. "If they leave the situation as it is we will not forget, as we do not forget 35 years of oppression," warned Mr. Hamdoun, the preacher, referring to the tenure of Hussein's Baath Party.

"The stealing and conflict are not really [the result of people battling over the fate] of country," he said. "They're fighting over stolen property."

- Cameron W. Barr

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