The new task in the north

The US military commanders who have opened a second front in northern Iraq will have to win the political battle with their allies before turning their attention to Saddam's forces.

The second front is crucial to any hope of pulling off a classic pincer movement on Baghdad and diverting Saddam's resources away from the push from the south.

The Pentagon's original plans were wrecked by the Turkish parliament's refusal to allow the 62,000 US soldiers, led by the 4th Cavalry Division, to be deployed from their side of the border.

Major General Harry "Pete" Osman of the US Marines has set up headquarters in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq to deal with the disparate elements opposed to Saddam eager to fill in for the missing Americans troops but, at the same time, neutralise any threat from Turkey to move in on Kurdish-controlled Iraqi territory.

But a dangerous third factor has entered the political permutations - the growing threat from Iran and possible incursions to support fellow Shi'ites, which would realise the fear long held throughout the Arab world that war with Iraq would spread to both Turkey and Iran.

As his warplanes pounded forward Iraqi positions on the hilltops overlooking the Kurd-controlled enclave around Chamchamal, Maj Gen Osman attempted to forge peace in a summit at Salahudin.

Present were leaders of the Iraqi National Congress, which has about 500 mostly Arab guerrillas, and the main Iraqi Shi'ite opposition group the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution, with their 1,500. The two main Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdish Democratic Party, who have 60,000 peshmerga fighters, were also there. But it ended with the Iraqi opposition groups furious to be left out of war plans, the KDP expressing growing anger with Washington's apparent indifference and Kurdish military commanders bitterly critical of American tactics on the ground.

The Iraqi dissidents had hoped to present a united front to steamroll the Americans into accepting that there must be an Iraqi military element to the war, emphasising that Saddam's troops were more likely to surrender to fellow countrymen than invading Americans and Britons.

But there is growing suspicion among the opposition groups that the Americans are paying lip service only to their concerns and were unimpressed when American officers refused to meet them as a group but adopted a "divide and rule" approach, interviewing each leader on his own.

Meanwhile, Turkey has moved 10,000 troops to its southern border with Iraq and, despite British and US demands that it stays out of Iraq, continues to threaten to invade if the Kurds move on the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in Saddam's territory. If the Turks move there are signs that Tehran would also take the opportunity to step in against Iranian opposition based in Iraq, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq. Many SCIR fighters have already moved from their Iranian bases into northern Iraq.

The political nightmare is one explanation for the softly-softly approach so far taken by the Americans.

Karim Sinjari, the KDP's interior minister, was angry there had only been relatively light bombing of Saddam's troops and little signs of a ground offensive up to now. However, the situation was changing today when 1,000 US paratroopers took control of a key airfield at Bashur, 30 miles from the Turkish border in northern Iraq.

Before the drop, Mr Sinjari warned the US: "If there is no guarantee from Turkey that it will not invade our territory, then we won't help the Americans anyway. We'll be fighting the Turks, and we won't need anyone's permission to do that."