Union Tribune March 29, 2003 Advancing Kurds find resort in ruins By MARCUS STERN COPLEY NEWS SERVICE QARAH ANJIR, Iraq – Moving into the vacuum created by an Iraqi retreat, Kurdish security forces got their first glimpse in 12 years of this former resort town yesterday and found it a disconcerting mix of rocky ruins and hastily evacuated military posts. The floor of a military hospital was littered with plastic IV bags, a poster showing how to dress battlefield wounds, wet dressings and a helmet. Iraqi soldiers had retreated Thursday to a ridge about five miles west of oil-rich Kirkuk, which is controlled by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The retreat marked what might be the beginning of an anticipated battle for control of the northern Iraqi city. A similar battle is expected over another oil-rich city in northern Iraq, Mosul. Some U.S. forces are now near Mosul. But the absence of any immediate visible reaction by coalition forces to the Iraqi retreat here has raised questions about the strategy of coalition forces in the north. While ragtag squads of Kurdish forces tentatively moved into the vacuum, there remained no sign of U.S. or coalition forces. Along a ridgeline that had hosted the most forward Iraqi positions until Thursday, it was clear why Hussein's forces had left. Their bunkers had been destroyed by U.S. missile strikes that left craters 10 yards in diameter along the ridge known as Banimakam. Throughout the day, men from the Kurdish village below, Chamchamal, searched the Iraqi posts for metal debris they could scavenge, including corrugated tin and pipes. A 20-foot-high roadside painting of a smiling Saddam Hussein was toppled and defaced. Finally, Iraqi gunners only a few miles away let their feelings be known. Late in the afternoon, they fired an artillery shell into a large mound on the ridge that had been abandoned by the Iraqis 24 hours earlier. It hit with a loud explosion, sending Kurdish teen-agers and young men scurrying for safety with their scavenged goods, including Iraqi .50-caliber machine gun bullets and helmets. Then, a second shell hit. A third whistled high over the mountaintop, landing on the far side in Chamchamal, a town on the Kurdish side of the no-man's land that had separated the Kurds and Iraqis for 12 years, until Thursday. The shell hit the deserted Kurdish customs house. From several miles away, the Iraqis fired several more rounds into Chamchamal, injuring a 12-year-old boy. He walked out of the hospital later unassisted, a white dressing wrapped around his head. Two people who were more seriously injured were taken to Sulaymaniyah hospital, about two hours' drive east. Most of the women and children of Chamchamal left their homes for safety more than a week ago, leaving in their wake a town of only men. While shells rained down on the town, many men casually walked the streets showing no sign of fear. Others raced out of town in cars toward the east, away from the Iraqi guns. But the day's strangest moments came as Kurdish soldiers and security forces moved carefully into the liberated area, after removing antitank mines left by the retreating Iraqi forces. They made their way through the town of Qarah Anjir. The town, whose name means black fig, had been a beautiful hilltop resort. Today, it is nothing but crumbling ruins. Iraqi soldiers had built many bunkers and some buildings. But for the most part, the pastoral landscape was dotted with the eerie stony remains of long-neglected vacation dwellings. "It was very strange," said Burhan Wais Muhamad, a security officer of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the political party and militia that controls this region. "But I am very happy." It was his first view of the town in 12 years. At one point, PUK forces known as peshmergas, stood on a ridge looking at Iraqi soldiers on a distant ridge, across the new front between the Kurds and Iraqi soldiers loyal to Hussein. Behind the Iraqis, the city of Kirkuk could be seen in the distance. Several plumes of smoke rose where natural gas was being vented. But by late afternoon, nervous PUK forces began forcing people back toward Chamchamal. It was then that the shelling of the Banimakam and the town began.