Kurds make gains in north

American and Kurdish forces today took a key mountain from which Iraqis were defending the northern city of

Hoshiyar Zebari, political adviser to Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, said: "That area was heavily defended by Iraqis throughout the campaign. From our perspective, this is the most important gain of the northern front so far."

The Maqloub mountain, is nine miles north-east of Mosul.

Asked if there was likely to be Iraqi resistance between the mountain and Mosul, Zebari said: "No, basically the city has fallen." He said US forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters would now march on Mosul.

US forces and the peshmerga have been pushing towards Mosul and the major oil centre of Kirkuk, the main prize in the north, for days.

Kurdish forces heading to Kirkuk have now seized the towns of Makhmur and Altun Kubri - here they were greeted by a jubilant crowd, according to a Kurdish fighter.

US special forces had entered the town two hours before. Artillery rounds could be heard as sporadic clashes occurred. Makhmur, half way between Mosul and Kirkuk, was taken over by US-Kurdish forces without a fight, says the US military.

Kirkuk and Mosul are still controlled by forces loyal to Saddam-Hussein's toppled regime and are the main objectives of the three-week-old joint coalition and Kurdish rebel military push in northern Iraq.

The US military says it is in full control of the three key cities, Najaf, Karbala and Hillah, which are about 70 miles south of Baghdad.

Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division defeated around 200 Fedayeen fighters with machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades outside Hillah. They then moved on to secure the neighbouring cities of Najaf and Karbala.

Control over the area allows the US to transfer vital supplies, such as food, water and fuel, to troops in and around Baghdad. Lieutenant Colonel Rick Carlson of the 101st Airborne also said they discovered large weapons caches in school buildings in the area.

"Every school we have encountered in these three regions has been used as a weapons depot," he said.

After a gruelling two-week battle in the southern city of Nasariyah, troops are involved in mopping up operations and are searching for weapons of mass destruction.

Today they uncovered what appears to be a torture chamber.

Captain Pete McAleer, of the US marines, said the single-storey building also had documents monitoring residents. "The records were very detailed. It looks a bit too much like Nazi Germany to me."