The situation in this oil-rich northern city remained uncertain, however, with the newly installed local governor warning Friday that it was spiralling out of control of local Kurdish chiefs.

Already on Wednesday, tens of thousands of Kurds celebrated the entry by US troops into Baghdad, gleeful over the Iraqi strongman's ouster.

Saddam is accused of having used chemical weapons against Kurds, and the 1988 killing of around 5,000 people in the Kurdish town of Halabja was a key argument used by US President George W. Bush to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Seventy-five percent of those victims were women and children, according to Kurdish estimates.

In 1991, Saddam crushed a Kurdish uprising that followed the Gulf War, and widespread persecution and expulsions of Kurds have regularly marked his reign, which spared few Kurdish families in one form or another.

But contrary to Iraqi Shiites in the south, Kurds won autonomy in some northern parts of the country, protected by the United Nations, as well as by US and British warplanes enforcing a no-fly zone over their territory.

They have used that ground to host US special forces sent to identify targets for air attacks and expel Islamic groups believed linked to Al-Qaeda terrorists, which occupy a sliver of territory in northeastern Iraq.

Kurdish forces became an essential element in US strategy after Ankara rejected Washington's request to allow the 4th Infantry Division to drive into northern Iraq from southeastern Turkey.

Under Turkish treats to send its own forces into Iraq to prevent the creation of an independent Kurdish state, Washington has sought to control the Kurdish troops and prevent them from becoming a major force in the region.

Ankara fears such an entity would revive the nationalist aspirations of its own sizeable Kurdish minority, with which it has established a fragile truce after years of armed conflict.

Against that background, reports Friday that the situation in this northern city was moving out of control suggest US advisors might have been caught by surprise.

Kirkuk's newly named Kurdish governor, Rizgar Ali Hamgam, told AFP local Kurdish chiefs were losing control and that several people had been killed.

Kirkuk was declared the future Kurdish capital several months ago by the two biggest Kurdish groups, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Ankara has called the occupation of Kirkuk "unacceptable", raising the possibility of an armed intervention in northern Iraq, which is also home to a strong Turkish-speaking Turkmen minority.

US officials quickly promised to drive Kurdish fighters out of the city.

Bahroz Galali, a PUK representative in Ankara, said Thursday night that Kurdish fighters who captured would withdraw on Friday

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Turkey would closely monitor developments.

Kurdish groups have long dreamt of an independent state, but as the Iraqi crisis developed they agreed instead to take part in a democratic, federal Iraq.

But many Kurds believe the question of independence will crop up again, claiming they they are the biggest ethnic group in the world without its own state.

A large number of Kurds also remain wary of US promises, saying Washington failed to deliver in 1991 when Saddam Hussein cracked down on parts of northern Iraq after the Gulf War came to an end.

SPACE.WIRE