Kurdish forces were present, but keeping a low profile, as dozens of residents gathered outside the city hall, and incidents of the looting already familiar in other places abandoned by Saddam Hussein's regime began.

In several districts people were seen taking furniture and anything else they could carry from official buildings.

But other administratives centres were destroyed, apparently by bombs or missiles of the US-British coalition.

Witnesses said the peshmergas entered the city overnight, after Iraqi forces withdrew late Thursday.

Early Thursday Kurdish and US forces took over the other main city in northern Iraq, Kirkuk, sparking concern in neighbouring Turkey.

SPACE.WIRE