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CNN Live At Daybreak
Celebrations in Towns Across Northern Iraq
Aired April 10, 2003 - 06:18 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The situation in northern Iraq has been very fluid today, a lot of developments. And we want to go ahead and check in with our Brent Sadler. He is in northern Iraq in the town of Khanaqin.
Brent, what do you have?
BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Daryn.
Yes, a lot of flexibility and fluidity on the ground here in northern Iraq. This town of Khanaqin, about 18 miles northeast of Baghdad, literally fell into Iraqi-Kurdish hands within the past few hours. I came into this city with about 100,000 people following the peshmerga Iraqi fighters and the U.S. Special Forces, a small contingent that had been leading airstrikes, calling in aircraft on Iraqi positions around this city over night. In the hours of darkness during a curfew, the Iraqi military in Khanaqin fled under the onslaught of U.S. bombs.
And then shortly after daybreak, the peshmergas came in. And since they did come in, this town has erupted in celebrations, gunfire being fired into the air and pictures of Saddam Hussein, countless pictures in this city, as in towns and villages across Iraq, pictures of Saddam Hussein being blasted by machine guns into oblivion.
Now I've seen ambulances with loud speakers operating here really trying to stop people firing these weapons, concerned that there might be accidental death or injury, even as they celebrate this moment of the day after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. That's not just here in Khanaqin, which sets across a main route into the Baghdad area, it's happening right across what used to be the northern front. Kirkuk, we have confirmation from CNN's Ben Wedeman that that city is falling, parts of it already have fallen. Also, big pressure on Mosul. And of course pressure is building on Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's birthplace.
So these kind of scenes of joy being repeated in towns and villages across northern Iraq, the gravitational pull after the decapitation of the regime in Baghdad simply too great. Saddam Hussein's power crushed now, beginning to be crushed right across the north.
Back to you -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Yes, Brent, as these towns fall and as these Iraqi soldiers give up, where do they go and what exactly do they do? How are they surrendering? SADLER: Well this happened during a curfew time when the people of this city, mostly Kurds, were confined to their homes. But they don't know precisely where they went. They just heard them skedaddling from town in the middle of the night.
And this is what's happening, you know, throughout these areas, people just melting away. Soldiers, Saddam Fedayeen, the very operators of the Baath Party control, evaporating as it were, disappearing and not really quite understanding where they're going to other than just melting away.
There is still an area between the northern parts of Baghdad and these areas in the north which are still not in the hands of coalition forces or indeed the peshmerga guerrilla fighters, the Iraqi Kurds. So there may be an area where these forces are being squeezed in to. We know there is possibly Republican Guard strength around Tikrit. There may be the need to have a battler there to inflict a defeat on the final remnant of the Republican Guard. Still unsure about that.
Still uncertainty in many parts of the central part of Iraq, but certainly there has been this break of the backbone along the north. Those two key oil towns, Kirkuk and Mosul, in the process of falling right now. The oil fields holding about a third of Iraq's precious oil wells, no reports of any damage to those oil fields by fleeing Iraqi military units. And this day really one for celebration here in Khanaqin and many other parts of towns and villages across northern Iraq -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Brent Sadler, reporting to us from the northern Iraqi town of Khanaqin, thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired April 10, 2003 - 06:18 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The situation in northern Iraq has been very fluid today, a lot of developments. And we want to go ahead and check in with our Brent Sadler. He is in northern Iraq in the town of Khanaqin.
Brent, what do you have?
BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Daryn.
Yes, a lot of flexibility and fluidity on the ground here in northern Iraq. This town of Khanaqin, about 18 miles northeast of Baghdad, literally fell into Iraqi-Kurdish hands within the past few hours. I came into this city with about 100,000 people following the peshmerga Iraqi fighters and the U.S. Special Forces, a small contingent that had been leading airstrikes, calling in aircraft on Iraqi positions around this city over night. In the hours of darkness during a curfew, the Iraqi military in Khanaqin fled under the onslaught of U.S. bombs.
And then shortly after daybreak, the peshmergas came in. And since they did come in, this town has erupted in celebrations, gunfire being fired into the air and pictures of Saddam Hussein, countless pictures in this city, as in towns and villages across Iraq, pictures of Saddam Hussein being blasted by machine guns into oblivion.
Now I've seen ambulances with loud speakers operating here really trying to stop people firing these weapons, concerned that there might be accidental death or injury, even as they celebrate this moment of the day after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. That's not just here in Khanaqin, which sets across a main route into the Baghdad area, it's happening right across what used to be the northern front. Kirkuk, we have confirmation from CNN's Ben Wedeman that that city is falling, parts of it already have fallen. Also, big pressure on Mosul. And of course pressure is building on Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's birthplace.
So these kind of scenes of joy being repeated in towns and villages across northern Iraq, the gravitational pull after the decapitation of the regime in Baghdad simply too great. Saddam Hussein's power crushed now, beginning to be crushed right across the north.
Back to you -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Yes, Brent, as these towns fall and as these Iraqi soldiers give up, where do they go and what exactly do they do? How are they surrendering? SADLER: Well this happened during a curfew time when the people of this city, mostly Kurds, were confined to their homes. But they don't know precisely where they went. They just heard them skedaddling from town in the middle of the night.
And this is what's happening, you know, throughout these areas, people just melting away. Soldiers, Saddam Fedayeen, the very operators of the Baath Party control, evaporating as it were, disappearing and not really quite understanding where they're going to other than just melting away.
There is still an area between the northern parts of Baghdad and these areas in the north which are still not in the hands of coalition forces or indeed the peshmerga guerrilla fighters, the Iraqi Kurds. So there may be an area where these forces are being squeezed in to. We know there is possibly Republican Guard strength around Tikrit. There may be the need to have a battler there to inflict a defeat on the final remnant of the Republican Guard. Still unsure about that.
Still uncertainty in many parts of the central part of Iraq, but certainly there has been this break of the backbone along the north. Those two key oil towns, Kirkuk and Mosul, in the process of falling right now. The oil fields holding about a third of Iraq's precious oil wells, no reports of any damage to those oil fields by fleeing Iraqi military units. And this day really one for celebration here in Khanaqin and many other parts of towns and villages across northern Iraq -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Brent Sadler, reporting to us from the northern Iraqi town of Khanaqin, thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
