The collapse of Iraqi control in the oil-rich region's two key cities in just two days has alarmed Turkey, which fears that Kurdish dominance just across its border would spark independence moves among its own restive Kurdish minority.

Under US and Turkish pressure, peshmerga fighters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) were preparing to leave Kirkuk as US reinforcements were said to be approaching the city.

A US Central Command spokeswoman in Qatar said that "Mosul and Kirkuk have fallen" and in a press briefing, US Brigadier General Vincent Brooks later said the Iraqi Army 5th Corps had signed a "ceasefire agreement" and that its troops would be going home.

But the situation on the ground was unclear.

An AFP reporter said peshmergas of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), had reached the centre of Mosul, but were keeping a low profile and later seemed to have disappeared, though others were seen elsewhere in the city.

There was no sign of the US special forces that the Centcom spokeswoman, Major Rumi Nielson-Green, told AFP were in the city.

"Coalition forces are inside the cities," she had said, adding "they are mostly special operations forces."

She said members of the Iraqi 5th Corps in and around Mosul surrendered to coalition troops.

"They made a very wise decision to live for a free Iraq rather than die for Saddam Hussein's regime," Nielson-Green said.

Later, KDP spokesman Hoshyar Zebari also told AFP the Iraqi army in the region had surrendered, and CNN showed thousands of unarmed Iraqi soldiers in civilian clothes walking south, away from Kirkuk and Mosul.

As the first peshmergas reached the center of Mosul, dozens of residents gathered outside Mosul's city hall, and the looting already familiar in other places abandoned by Saddam Hussein's regime began.

But the atmosphere was much more subdued than on Thursday in Kirkuk, historically a Kurdish majority city of great emotional significance to the Kurds, which saw widespread scenes of jubilation.

Witnesses said the peshmergas had entered Mosul overnight, after Iraqi forces withdrew late Thursday, abandoning their weapons.

In several districts people were seen taking furniture and anything else they could carry from official buildings, some of which were subsequently set on fire.

Other administrative centres, including the intelligence headquarters, had already been destroyed, apparently by US-British coalition bombing.

Mosul is strategically important due to its airport and an Iraqi missile-launching base and has been targeted by US air raids since the war began on March 20.

The fall of Kirkuk already alarmed Turkey, which fears Kurdish control of the oil-rich city would fan desires for independence that would spread to its own Kurdish minority.

However, General "Mam" Rostam, a commander of the PUK, which shares power with the KDP in Kurdistan, said Friday his 10,000 peshmergas had been ordered to leave the city.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said "the (Kurdish) elements that had entered Kirkuk started to leave today," as PUK "prime minister" Barahm Salah said US reinforcements were approaching Kirkuk to help make it secure.

Inside Kirkuk, the situation was spiralling out of the control of local Kurdish chiefs, and several people have been killed, the city's Kurdish governor said.

Pillaging and score-settling began following the city's capture and carried on through the night, Rizgarali Hamgam told AFP.

He said a number of people were killed or wounded, but did not give details. Three people had died since the capture of the city, but they were hit by vollies from weapons fired in celebration, a hospital source said. Another 57 people were injured in such incidents.

Four Iraqi soldiers were killed and three wounded in fighting that accompanied the takeover, with the Kurds suffering two dead and seven injured, humanitarian sources said.

Centcom's Nielson-Green said "special forces and elements of the 173 Infantry Division continue to secure Kirkuk", and coalition forces were in control of the airport there.

Salah said the Kurdish fighters would withdraw "as quickly as possible, but not before a sufficient number of American troops have arrived."

Rostam said that after their entry into Kirkuk, stealing a symbolic march on the rival KDP, the PUK fighters had ended their operations against Iraqi forces.

SPACE.WIRE