With a sense of liberation after years of tyranny and repression at the hands of President Saddam Hussein, the Kurds swarmed the town, brandishing pictures of US President George W. Bush and Patriotic Union of Kurdistanleader Jalal Talabani.

The joyous crowd hailed a dozen members of the US special forces operating in the area, who had hitherto kept a low profile, as conquering heroes.

As the Americans were paraded through the streets, they were jostled and embraced amid a shower of kisses from all sides.

"I kissed them, I kissed them," shouted Mahmud Kerim, tears of happiness welling up in his eyes, "and I kiss the hands and feet of George W. Bush," he added before carrying on his way, kissing everyone in sight.

The US soldiers have kept a discreet presence in the region since being parachuted in a week ago to engage in operations aimed at the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, but on Wednesday emerged from their makeshift headquarters to join in the impromptu celebrations.

Cars paraded around the town, horns blaring, and many of their occupants fired shots into the air in high spirits at the impending demise of the hated Baath Party regime.

Kerim confided that "like every Kurdish family" his had suffered under the iron rule of Saddam. "They killed 10 of my family and today feels like a rebirth for me," he said.

The Kurds have never forgotten the vicious chemical weapons attacks on them at the end of the eight-year war with Iran in 1988 or the way their uprising against the regime was cruelly quashed in 1991 after the last Gulf War.

As television images from Baghdad showed effigies of Saddam the hated dictator being burned on the streets of the capital, the Kurds danced, laughing uncontrollably, a sense of the years of hoping for his overthrow finally nearing fruition.

At the same time, Kurdish peshmergas (fighters) were amassing in the town of Chamchamal and reinforcements were being brought in by road, ready to push on to the key towns of Kirkuk and Mosul.

But in Sulaymaniya, as the crowd chanted incessantly "Bush, we kiss your hand", they were beginnng what one Kurd anticipated as "a celebration which will last a whole week".

"I was born today," said Ahmad Yussuf, 25, surrounded by young men and women waving PUK banners and the flags of Kurdistan and Iraq. "May Bush and Blair live forever, they have made our dearest dream come true," they yelled.

Behind him a colleague yelled: "We are free." But his words seemed to reignite the anger at Saddam and as one, the crowd yelled: "Let him be torn limb from limb, cut up into little pieces and turned into a kebab."

Iraqi Kurdistan has enjoyed autonomy under the protection of US and British air patrols since the the end of the Gulf War, with government shared between the PUK and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Mustapha Barzani.

At Arbil, in KDP territory, some 1,000 people also took to the streets in celebration, also firing in the air and waving portraits of Barzani.

"You cannot imagine my joy," said Zana Sami, 19. "I have relations in Kirkuk and Mosul, and I will be able to visit them at last."

Remembering the gas attacks on them, notably the one which killed 5,000 people in Halabja in 1988, they expressed relief that the threat of chemical weapons from Saddam's regime now seemed remote.

SPACE.WIRE