Kurds flee Iraqi oil center, cite harassment

QUSHTAPA, Iraq -- The Kurdish families arrive with few possessions but laden with stories about why they fled the city of Kirkuk: a tightening noose of searches, harassment and arrests by Saddam Hussein's forces in the strategic oil center.

"It's terrible," exclaimed Saheed Said, who crossed into the Western-protected Kurdish enclave Friday with his wife and three children, joining a growing exodus of Iraqi Kurds from the northern city. "Saddam has turned it into a military camp."

The accounts by the fleeing families cannot be independently verified. But they suggest Iraqi soldiers are fortifying positions at one of the potential key battlefields and trying to root out any perceived threats among the majority Kurds.

An escalating campaign of house-to-house searches and detentions of suspected underground resistance supporters apparently has accelerated the Kurdish flight from Kirkuk, about 150 miles north of Baghdad. At least 1,000 Kurds have crossed into the northern safe haven zone outside of Saddam's control since Thursday, border officials said.

'We were so afraid'

A steady stream of vehicles -- battered buses, cars and packed taxis -- passed Friday through the Kurdish checkpoint at Qushtapa, about 45 miles north of Kirkuk. Those with relatives in the enclave were allowed to continue toward Irbil, the administrative capital of the Kurdish zone. Others with nowhere to go huddled together in muddy lots until authorities could find them shelter.

"We were so afraid. We decided we couldn't wait and had to leave right away. All I grabbed was a few clothes and one loaf of bread," said Resan Bahadi, hugging her 12-year-old daughter as they waited for someone to arrange a room in a local home.

The Iraqi clampdown intensified early this week after protesters in Kirkuk burned a portrait of Saddam, the refugees said. The Iraqi searches apparently seek any evidence of Kurdish dissent, such as weapons, letters, Kurdish newspapers or books.

"They even check the radio to see if it's dialed to a Kurdish station," said Bahadi. "That alone could get you in trouble now."

Kirkuk, the regional center of Iraq's most important northern oil fields, remained under Saddam's control after the Gulf War while Irbil and other Kurdish areas to the north achieved effective autonomy under the protection of U.S. and British warplanes.

Tens of thousands of Kurds have left Kirkuk for the safe haven in the past decade. Saddam, meanwhile, moved Arab settlers into the Kirkuk area and enforced a so-called "nationality correction" campaign in which Kurds were forced to adopt Arab names or risk losing their property.

A report released in Washington on Friday by Human Rights Watch said Iraq continues to expel not only Kurds, but ethnic Turks and Assyrians in the region and turn their property over to Arab families from the south.

The organization said there was an urgent need to organize the orderly return of more than 120,000 people forced out of their homes since 1991. This was essential to head off ethnic violence should displaced families attempt to return to the area, it said in a report.

Kirkuk could become a pivotal point in a U.S.-led attack.

The city would be a major crossroads for any northern invasion from Turkey -- if Turkey's parliament reconsiders its rejection of a U.S. request to allow up to 62,000 troops to open a northern front in the event of an attack.

Walid Rashid, a 24-year-old Kurdish metal-shop worker in Kirkuk, said Iraqi forces were building earthen and concrete mounds and digging trenches in anticipation of an attack. Additional anti-aircraft batteries are in place, but no tanks have been seen in the city, he added.

"All the young men are in a panic," he said. "The Iraqis are rounding up anyone they feel could fight against them. Everyone is looking to get out."

So far, the Iraqi forces have not blocked the route north to the Kurdish enclave. But Kurds in Kirkuk fear their avenue out could be closed if diplomatic efforts to avert war are exhausted.

The owner of an old Nissan bus, Karim Sulayman, planned three trips Friday to ferry Kurds to Irbil.

"People are begging for seats," he said. "They are feeling this could be their last chance."

Behind the bus, a rusty Kirkuk taxi creaked under the weight of nine passengers. Mohammad Salah, 81, crammed himself and his son's family into the cab for a one-way trip from Kirkuk to Irbil.

"How could we remain? Saddam's military is everywhere in Kirkuk," he said. "In a war, it could become a very bloody place."