65 Iraqi soldiers surrender in northern Iraq: Kurdish TV

ARBIL, Iraq (AFP) Apr 01, 2003
Sixty-five Iraqi soldiers deserted their posts Tuesday near the northern city of Mosul and surrendered to forces of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the Kurdish group's TV station said.

The satellite channel broadcast pictures of Iraqi soldiers being taken behind the frontlines ahead of their transfer to special camps for deserters.

The television said the deserters came from near Bardarash village north of Mosul and that Iraqi soldiers had abandoned a number of positions near KDP-controlled areas.

On Monday, senior KDP official Hoshyar Zebari said Iraqi forces had pulled back at least three kilometers (two miles) and abandoned positions at the frontline in the Dahuk region.

Zebari said about 100 Iraqi fighters had been killed in US-led bombing of the government-controlled Mosul region.

The KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan have shared control of a Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq in defiance of Baghdad since the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War.

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