As allied troops led an assault to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government, Kurds living in the autonomous north of Iraq are organizing their meager resources to prepare for a war that will have a profound impact on their lives.
Gunfire already could be heard from the frontier with the Saddam-ruled part of Iraq, and many Kurds are fleeing northern cities in fear the fighting will envelop their homes. But Kurds also see the US plan to destroy the Iraqi regime as a realization of their dreams.
``It's been more than 30 years that we've tried to topple Saddam Hussein without success,'' said Noshirwan Mustafa, a leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which rules the eastern half of the autonomous Kurdish enclave. ``Now, for the first time the national interests of the United States are the same as ours.''
The Iraqi Kurds established their self-rule area under the protection of the US-British no-fly zone in 1991. But the Kurds have little information about American plans for an offensive and few provisions to deal with a war.
In Sulaymaniyah, which is believed to have a population of more than half a million, most people have fled to relatives and friends in the countryside. In Chamchamal, 60km to the west, 90 percent of the 58,000 residents have left, according to the city's mayor, Tariq Raishid Ali.
The Kurds expect many Iraqi army soldiers to defect to the Kurds. In 1991, following the US war with Iraq, 50,000 Iraqis soldiers of all ranks defected to Iraqi Kurdistan.
Ali says the Chamchamal has set up schools to act as reception centers for deserters. Three days ago, he said, 11 defectors handed themselves over at a front-line post 100km away.
Preparations for refugees fleeing Baghdad-controlled Iraq are being hampered by a lack of supplies. Abdul Razzaq Mirza, the minister of humanitarian affairs in this part of the Kurdish enclave, complained that international aid agencies had allocated all funding for refugees to neighboring countries such as Jordan and Iran.
``We lack shelter items like tents and blankets,'' he said. ``It's a shame. We are Iraq. We could welcome people here but nothing has been prepared.''
Chamchamal has a 35-bed hospital, but only five doctors remain in town. ``We are waiting for casualties,'' says Dr Musa Mohammad Morad, who treated casualties here in the 1991 Gulf War.
The Kurds' biggest fear now is chemical weapons, which Saddam used against the Kurdish city of Halabja and other villages in 1988.
``We have to take the possible use of chemical weapons into consideration,'' says Mola Bakhtiyar, a member of the Patriotic Union's 13-member leadership committee. ``Were not prepared for them.''
In Chamchamal, occasional shelling and gunfire erupted along the front lines Wednesday, dying down by evening. Skirmishes often break out between Kurds and Iraqi soldiers, but the exact reason for the gunfire was unclear. Ali, the mayor, said the Iraqis had moved several tank positions to the ridge overlooking the city.
Only a few hundred Kurdish soldiers could be seen in the city, a major gateway for travel to and from Kirkuk, the oil-rich Iraqi city coveted by the Kurds as the future capital of a federal homeland.
On Tuesday, Ali said, traffic coming from Kirkuk came to a halt. The price of gasoline, normally smuggled out of Baghdad-controlled Iraq, has more than quadrupled. And hoarding of essential supplies has begun.
But perhaps the biggest challenge for the Kurds is navigating the tricky political waters ahead. Bakhtiyar of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan said the Kurds worry about interference by neighbors Turkey and Iran.
Turkey has said it wants to bolster its tiny military presence in Iraqi Kurdistan to guard against a refugee influx and fight any effort to establish a separatist Kurdish state -- which could encourage Turkey's Kurdish separatists. Kurds have vowed to fight the Turks if they invade.
Kurds say they have prepared their 70,000-man Peshmerga guerrilla militia, but the force has come nominally under control of the US military command.
Americans fear Kurdish fighters will try to return to Kirkuk and take revenge on Arabs that have moved into the city.
But Iraqi Kurdistan has many armed militias, and some guerrilla leaders say they will do whatever they want, regardless of American orders.
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