Northern Iraq

The battlefield Firefights involving U.S. troops continue in Mosul, where Iraqis say 17 people have been killed and 18 injured in two days of fighting. Gen. Tommy R. Franks makes his first trip to Baghdad and meets with U.S. military leaders. American forces raid the home of Hussein's biological weapons chief - Rihab Taha, dubbed "Dr. Germ" by U.N. inspectors - and find a recently abandoned terrorist training camp, officials say. The Army's 4th Infantry Division enters combat, exchanging fire with Iraqi paramilitary forces at an airfield north of Baghdad.

MOSUL, Iraq - Last week, Lt. Gen. Tahaseen Rafan was an Iraqi domestic intelligence official running a network of spies in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Today he is frightened, alone and in hiding, one of thousands of members of Saddam Hussein's security apparatus who have abruptly gone from predator to prey. Early yesterday afternoon, Rafan and five midlevel Iraqi military and intelligence officials arrived at the makeshift U.S. military base here to negotiate their surrender and ask for protection.

DAY 18 Saturday, April 5 U.S. armored vehicles took a daring drive through the southern area of Baghdad to reinforce the message that coalition troops can strike anywhere. The drive prompted Iraqi troops, fedayeen militiamen and Baath Party loyalists to patrol the streets of the capital. U.S. soldiers captured the headquarters of the Republican Guard's Medina Division in Suwayrah, 35 miles southeast of Baghdad, while the 1st Marines Expeditionary Force penetrated the Al Nida division of the Republican Guard on the southeastern edge of the city.

WASHINGTON - Turkey's alarm yesterday at the surge by Kurdish forces into the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq threw a spotlight on the ethnic and religious cauldron that American soldiers and diplomats now must keep from bubbling over. Iraq's population includes most of the Middle East's religions, ethnic groups and cultures, a diversity that many hope will one day become an example of harmony for a hate-riven region. But historically this patchwork has pitted rival groups against one another and threatened to pull apart a nation cobbled together by the British Empire at the end of World War I. Now, Iraq's first burst of freedom threatens to open a season of jockeying for power, revenge and score-settling that might preoccupy the United States as much as providing humanitarian relief and putting together a new government that represents the aspirations of all Iraqis.

KIRKUK, Iraq - The road to Kirkuk was littered with discarded Iraqi army boots. Defenses around the Iraqi-held city crumbled yesterday after assaults by Kurdish forces, a brief uprising by Kirkuk's residents and a wild flight by thousands of Iraqi soldiers, who abandoned their positions and scrambled south toward President Saddam Hussein's bastion of Tikrit. As they fled, many shed much of their military equipment, clothing and, perhaps, any remaining hope of defeating the U.S.-led Kurdish fighters here.

IRBIL, Iraq - As war rages in southern Iraq and the rest of the Middle East is shaken by angry protests, most people in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq live in the tranquil eye of the storm. Akram Hussein, a 26-year-old shepherd, quietly tended his family's flock in rich pastureland yesterday afternoon, keeping his eye on an approaching thunderstorm. People in his village, he said, were pleased that the regime of Saddam Hussein seemed to be teetering, but they weren't celebrating. They rejoiced three weeks ago, he said, the moment the first cruise missiles were fired at Baghdad.

PIRDAWD, Iraq -- American aircraft struck a convoy of Kurdish fighters and U.S. Special Forces yesterday in a "friendly fire" attack that Kurds said killed at least 18 and wounded dozens more. U.S. military officials said they were investigating what could be one of the deadliest such accidents of the war on Iraq. A statement from Central Command said the allied aircraft were providing close air support near the village of Kalak, about 30 miles southeast of Mosul. The number of casualties was unclear.

WASHINGTON - In the largest covert military campaign in recent history, more than 9,000 special operations forces are conducting some of the riskiest missions of the war in Iraq, working in nearly every corner of the country and penetrating even the streets of Baghdad. Some of their missions date to before the official start of the war, March 19, and others haven't been disclosed. The Pentagon has released brief, carefully edited film clips of some: attacks on one of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's private palaces and the rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, for example.

ISTANBUL, Turkey - Turkey has agreed to permit the limited resupply of American military forces in northern Iraq through Turkish territory, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday, easing pressure on stretched supply lines and shoring up shaky relations between the two longtime allies. Powell said at a televised news conference here yesterday that Turkish officials will allow food, fuel, medicine and "other humanitarian assistance" into Iraq for U.S. forces. Turkey also agreed to let U.S. military planes in distress land in Turkish territory, he said.