"They are on their way to Kirkuk," said Salah, the Kurdish "prime minister" of an autonomous zone of northern Iraq administered by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Ankara, meanwhile, sent military observers into northern Iraq to ensure the Kurds would stick to a three-way deal with Washington to withdraw from the city.

Hundreds of Kurdish policemen had already arrived in Kirkuk to restore order after the situation began spinning out of control overnight, an AFP reporter saw.

Other Kurdish sources said that US reinforcements were expected here later Friday.

Salah said Kurdish fighters who captured the city Thursday along with US special forces would withdraw "as quickly as possible, but not before a sufficient number of American troops have arrived."

Talks being held to finalise details of the Kurdish pullout and the installation of a provisional administration included representatives of Kirkuk's various ethnic communities and senior US officers.

Asked if the city would be administered by a US military governor, Salah replied: "We will work within the coalition framework."

After a night of ceaseless looting, Rizgarali Hamgam, installed as provisional governor by the Kurds following the seizure of Kirkuk, admitted, "We cannot control the situation."

His office was besieged by hundreds of complainants as bands of looters who followed the peshmerga fighters into Kirkuk made off with lorry loads of booty.

Ironically, hardly a drop of petrol could be found in the centre of one of Iraq's main oil-producing regions, and witnesses described fights over the last few litres drained from tankers.

Hamgam said a number of people had been killed or wounded in personal or ethnic score-settling, but gave no details, and one of the city's main hospitals said it had admitted no such cases.

Historically a Kurdish-majority city, Kirkuk was "ethnically cleansed" under the rule of Saddam Hussein, who expelled many of its original inhabitants and replaced them by Arabs.

With Kirkuk's fall, thousands of Kurdish exiles flooded back in, vowing to reclaim their confiscated property, by force if necessary, sparking fears among city's Arab and Turkmen residents.

The city's Saddam Hussein hospital said the only deaths reported so far were four Iraqi soldiers and two Kurds killed in fighting and three people accidentally shot in celebratory firing.

Hamgam said he was waiting for more US forces to arrive to help make the city safe. A few US special troops accompanied the peshmergas into Kirkuk but the swift Kurdish move into the city appeared to have caught Washington by surprise.

A furious Turkey said Thursday it had won a US pledge to drive out the Kurdish fighters from Kirkuk, as the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) said its forces were going on Friday anyway.

General "Mam" Rostam, a PUK commander, told AFP that some 10,000 peshmergas in the city have now been ordered to leave. "We are waiting now for the US forces to arrive. The armed peshmergas should leave the city today or tomorrow," he said.

However, Rostam said a small number of the fighters would stay in the city to help the US forces secure it.

Ankara, which fears a Kurdish independence movement in Iraq that could embolden Kurdish separatists in Turkey, had threatened to send its forces into the north if the Kurds took control of Kirkuk and Mosul.

But Washington was keen to keep Turkey out, fearing clashes between the Turkish army and Kurdish groups, both US allies.

In a compromise deal with the United States, Turkey on Friday sent about 15 military observers to northern Iraq to monitor developments, a senior diplomat in Ankara said.

"They will stay there as long as necessary," he added, while a government statement said the observers would cooperate with US units in the area.

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

KDP peshmergas for their part entered Mosul, the other main city in northern Iraq, on Friday.

Rostam said a plan would be prepared with US officers and representatives of local Kurd, Arab, Turkmen and Assyrian populations for governing Kirkuk. Most of his forces plan to return to their homes, he said.

SPACE.WIRE