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Mosul falls, chaos takes hold

US marines kill two children at Nassiriyah checkpoint; Saddam remnants fight on in Baghdad; invaders capture Iraq's largest oilfield in Kirkuk

STAR DESK
US and Kurdish forces swept into Iraq's third city of Mosul without a fight yesterday, prompting looting, arson and frenzied celebrations in the streets.
People in Mosul plundered the central bank, grabbing wads of money and throwing bills in the air. The 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.
Gunmen, apparently Kurdish fighters, started swinging their rifles and firing into the air to force looters to leave. On the square in front of the city's government house, people set fire to a picture of Saddam.
The entire Iraqi army's 5th Corps had surrendered and US forces on the ground were determining whether to treat the Iraqis as prisoners of war or let them return home, said US central command.
Trails of black smoke rose from
different parts of Mosul's low-slung skyline. A state bank -- the Rashid Bank -- was on fire, along with the government printing office and several Baath Party offices.
At Saddam General Hospital, three of the five ambulances were stolen and armed men, described as Kurds, tried to enter the hospital, but the staff managed to hold them off. Doctors' cars were stolen at gunpoint. Jumhuriya Hospital said all eight of its ambulances were taken at gunpoint.
"There is absolutely no security.
The medical staff is scared for their safety. The city has fallen into anarchy," said the hospital's staff physician Dr Darfar Ibrahim Hasan.
US marines opened fire on a vehicle which ignored warnings to stop at a checkpoint in the southern city of Nassiriyah yesterday, and two children inside were killed, the marines said.
Although the invading troops sealed their victory in the north, gunfight and looting continued for a third day in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein's 24-year regime.
US troops are still fighting pockets of resistance by Fedayeen paramilitaries loyal to Saddam. Iraqi gunmen, apparently from the Shi'ite majority in the east-side slums in Baghdad, battled Saddam remnants overnight.
Elsewhere in the capital, a Reuters correspondent saw a fresh outbreak of intense looting in an area newly abandoned by non-Iraqi Arab paramilitary fighters. The Trade Ministry building was on fire, he added.
US soldiers with tanks and armoured
vehicles took over the Iraq's military intelligence headquarters after hundreds of Iraqi civilians besieged the sprawling compound. The civilians were searching for relatives they say had been detained there.
ON THE RUN OR UNDERGROUND
Their homes are being attacked and looted, their prestige and power in tatters, some of the high-profile disciples of Saddam are paying a heavy price for their loyalty to the Iraqi strongman.
SEE PAGE 11 COL 4 FROM PAGE 1
On the run or underground, they are being hunted as are Saddam and his sons by US soldiers now consolidating their hold over the Iraqi capital and other key cities further north.
Iraqi forces appear to have dissolved into streams of unarmed, bootless exsoldiers trekking home. There are reports of thousands of ex-soldiers walking the 155 miles south from Kirkuk to Baghdad in the strong sun.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has claimed that senior Iraqi leaders are fleeing to neighbouring Syria, in some cases to stay, in others to move elsewhere.
Us planes bomb home of Saddam's half-brother
US forces pressed on with efforts to hunt down deposed Iraqi leaders. A US aircraft hit the residence of Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother and former head of Iraq's Mukhabarat intelligence service, with six "smart bombs".
The results of the attack on the building, which was also an operations centre for the intelligence service, were not yet known.
Invaders off to Kirkuk
US soldiers fanned out across the northern Iraqi Kirkuk oilfield yesterday to secure Iraq's largest and oldest field, said a Reuters eyewitness on the scene.
The capture of Kirkuk, capable of pumping 900,000 barrels a day, leaves US-led forces in near total control of Iraq's vast oil wealth, the world's second largest reserves of crude.
Kirkuk's 408 oil wells appear to have escaped damage. Their status will be known for sure once US army engineers, already at work in Iraq's southern oil region, are on the ground. Many of Iraq's southern wells were left boobytrapped by Saddam Hussein loyalists.
Meanwhile, Kurdish guerrillas said they would hand over the important oil hub of Kirkuk to US troops. The rich city, traditional capital of the Kurds, fell on
Thursday to mixed units of Kurdish guerrillas and US special forces.
Tikrit targeted
Saddam's hometown of Tikrit is now the regime's last major stronghold. Coalition warplanes and special forces were targeting Tikrit, north-west of Baghdad.
Air strikes against Republican Guard targets were launched to "soften up" defences before ground troops moved in. The US 4th Infantry Division was expected to advance on the city from Kuwait.
But military officials refused to confirm suggestions that the US may seek to end hostilities quickly by using the 21,000lb so-called Moab, the "mother of all bombs", at Tikrit.
Leading regime figures have vanished from Baghdad, and coalition officials believe they may have tried to get to the Syrian border or Tikrit, although the road to Tikrit from Baghdad is dotted with special forces checkpoints.