U.S. special forces fighter stands before a portrait of Saddam Hussein that residents of Kirkuk riddled with bullets after the town fell to U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters on April 10, 2003. Kirkuk, which the Kurds consider a Kurdish city, is the center of I
KIRKUK, Iraq, April 10 — The strategic northern Iraq oil city of Kirkuk fell to U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters on Thursday, reported MSNBC.com’s Preston Mendenhall, one of the first American reporters to enter the city after its fall. Sporadic gunfire could still be heard, but Iraqi positions along the road through the suburbs into the city had been abandoned. Kurdish “peshmerga” guerrillas and U.S. special operations forces advanced without apparent resistance as civilians cheered and raided government buildings.
“IT APPEARS that the strategic city has fallen without much of a fight,” Mendenhall said.
The oil facilities were completely intact around the town. The flames that burn atop the wells were still blazing, showing that shafts were still pumping in Iraq’s no. 2 oil region.
There was no immediate confirmation from U.S. military officials that the city had been wrested...