Fighting in Mosul between the two communities, which began after the city fell on Friday to US-backed Kurdish forces, intensified during the day, with gunfire ringing out and buildings set ablaze.

"There are more than 200 wounded and 15 to 20 dead Arabs and Kurds since yesterday," said Muzahim Kawat, chief surgeon at the Mosul's emergency hospital.

"There is shooting from everywhere," from both the Kurdish and Arab sides, said a US soldier responsible for guarding the hospital.

Arab residents have accused Kurdish fighters of sacking the city, in which roadblocks have been set up by both sides in the deserted centre.

"The imams called on the population to form a civil militia to defend our goods and our families," said one Arab militiaman. "The Kurds of Mosul or those from the north have come to attack us under the eyes of the impassive Americans."

Kurdish fighters captured Mosul after Iraqi forces surrendered Friday afternoon. US special forces entered the city several hours later, leaving Saddam Hussein's ancestral power base of Tikrit in northern Iraq as his last major holdout.

Mosul, 450 kilometers (280 miles) north of Baghdad, is an Arab-majority enclave of 1.5 million inhabitants in the mostly Kurdish north and surrounded by oil fields.

The arrival of two Arab corpses at the hospital provoked cries of anger and calls for the US troops to force the peshmerga (Kurdish fighters) to leave.

Three dead Arabs lay in a burnt out car, while some of those injured spoke from their hospital bed of having been shot by Kurds.

In another part of the hospital, four Kurds said they had been wounded by Arabs.

"At a roadblock militiamen insulted us. They said we had come with the Americans, and were their enemies," said Yahya Sahdi, 56, who suffered a gunshot wound to his chest and a gashed face.

A Kurdish male nurse said the peshmerga who captured the city had nothing to do with what he described as intercommunal violence perpetrated by Kurdish residents of the city and its surroundings.

"It is the revenge of the Kurds, the old historical hatred which has arisen. Saddam Hussein controlled the population but each one has had a member of their family killed by the regime. Now that there is no more authority, they are taking vengeance," said Fakher Omar.

The US troops were not made welcome in the city. A patrol of four light armoured vehicles was met with a deadly silence from onlookers, few of whom replied to the greetings of the US troops.

"I have a message for the Americans: I blame them for all that occurred. They are at the origin of this situation. They pushed the peshmerga to make all this damage. They want to invade us not to release us," said Zaid al-Tahid, a doctor.

Meanwhile, peace began to return in Kirkuk following two days of looting after Kurdish fighters seized the city almost unopposed on Thursday.

US soldiers began to arrive in the city on Friday after a furious Turkey, which fears Kurdish dominance of the north would arouse separatist aspirations among its own Kurdish minority, secured a pledge from Washington to force the peshmerga out.

Kurdish fighters were certainly less visible in the city Saturday, in contrast to the previous 48 hours when thousands of Kurdish exiles poured in to celebrate the capture of what they view as their historic capital, sparking fears among city's Arab and Turkmen residents.

General Rostam Hamid Rahim, a top commander with the pro-US Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of two Kurdish factions in northern Iraq, said 2,000 US soldiers were present in the city by mid-afternoon.

A group of around 20 troops from the 173rd Airborne Division were seen guarding the entrance to the governor's office.

The American presence, together with Kurdish policemen, had managed to restore order to the city and end the widespread looting, he said, even though his office continued to be bombarded with complaints over stolen property, as well as the lack of water and electricity.

A civil committee representing the city's main communities -- Kurds, Turkmens, and Assyrians -- was set up Saturday to administer it and help maintain law and order, the PUK said.

Members of the city's ethnic Turkmen community, seen by many senior Iraqi Kurds as Ankara's fifth column in an area once part of the Ottoman Empire, have claimed they were being singled out by looters.

Kirkuk was "ethnically cleansed" under the rule of Saddam Hussein, who expelled many of its original inhabitants and replaced them with Arabs.

SPACE.WIRE