Northern Iraq: Five young defectors from Saddam Hussein's conscript army said they had abandoned their posts on the northern front lines to flee to the peace and safety of the liberated north because they could no longer stand the terror inflicted by a fierce US bombing campaign, writes Lynne O'Donnell.
The story told by the men yesterday, hours after they had crossed no-man's-land to give themselves up to Kurdish guerillas, suggests that the Iraqi regular forces holding the north are crumbling under the pressure of the unrelenting air campaign that has intensified in recent days.
Their account of conditions on the front line, however, contradicts the official Kurdish version, presented by government and militia leaders alike, that the Iraqi enemy facing them from the south has been demoralised by an ongoing shortage of food, clothing and equipment.
The five men, aged between 18 and 22, said they had waved down a car near their front-line posts in Sadao early yesterday morning and asked the driver to take them across the river that divides Saddam's territory from the protected Kurdish zones.
"We came across by car," said one of the men, who did not give their names, to protect their families. All said they were from southern Iraq.
"During the bombing, we could see the peshmerga [Kurdish militia\] over on this side, so we asked the driver to bring us over, and he did."
The men, who said they had been on the northern lines for 50 days, were driven to their decision to defect by the incessant bombing by US B-52 bombers, which in recent days have carpet-bombed the Iraqi front lines, in some places just 200 metres from the peshmerga posts.
"It's been going on for six days, but three days ago it just got more intense. It's terrifying. Whenever we heard the planes coming we hid ourselves in our shelters," said one.
"There is just no way we can defend ourselves against that sort of onslaught. I don't know how many of the Iraqi soldiers have been killed by the bombs, but I can say I saw one man dead," said another.
Since last Thursday, the Iraqis have been moving back towards the city of Kirkuk, in a tactical move that appears to be in preparation for the defence of the city, the jewel of the northern plain.
In some of the outposts abandoned by Iraqi troops as they moved 15 km back from Qoshtapa, Kurdish militiamen found gas masks, explosives, mines and pictures of Saddam Hussein.
Mr Hoshyar Zebari, the international relations director of the Kurdish Democratic Party, said that Kirkuk and nearby Mosul had been infiltrated by Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen, a reputedly fearsome division of black-garbed fighters that was formed after the Gulf War and is believed to be doggedly loyal to the Iraqi leader.
The Fedayeen "have broken every law of war, placing themselves in schools, mosques, hospitals, churches", Mr Zebari said.
On Sunday, he said, a group of Fedayeen had set up armed cells inside a monastery in the village of Alqosh, "an example of how desperate they are, that they are now using civilian and religious sites for their activities".
Behind the Fedayeen were regular troops and, behind them, to ensure there was no retreat by the conscripts, were lines of soldiers of the Republican Guard, also know for their devotion to Saddam, he said.
The Baathist troops were now being rotated, with men from the north being sent to the south, and vice versa, in another move designed to minimise desertions, Mr Zebari said.
He said that Saddam's troop numbers, possibly including the newly formed suicide squads, were being reinforced by fighters from "Islamic fundamentalists and terrorist groups" outside the country, including Syrians, Jordanians, Palestinians and north Africans.
The five defectors said that their only information about the allied campaign in the south of the country came from soldiers who had been transferred.
Any communications equipment had been taken from them two weeks ago.
Nevertheless, they had adequate army rations, and enough blankets to keep them warm during the long, sleepless nights at their posts. Their black leather army boots, which sat in a jaunty pile behind the door of their room in the Kalak KDP headquarters, were well made and in good condition.
The five, all small and slim, looked younger than their years. They wore baggy khaki uniforms, with hand-stitching where sleeves and legs had been shortened, and long underwear in grey or green, visible below their trousers.
Kurdish officials said they would be sheltered in northern Iraqi until after the war, when they would be free to return to their homes.
Any information they provided would be handed over to the Americans, who are now in command of military operations in the north.
Officials reported 12 Iraqi defections yesterday, all from the same area as the five hitchhikers.
Most had walked across the lines under cover of darkness - and in danger of being shot in the back by their commanding officers - and approached shepherds for help in finding a haven outside Saddam's control.
Despite KDP assurances that they would be well looked after, the men appeared uncertain about their fate and refused to answer questions about the war or Saddam Hussein "because", said one, "we don't know our destiny". But they said their defection was not motivated by a hatred of the regime or by hopes that the coalition campaign to remove the government of Saddam Hussein would prevail.
"I don't hate the Americans. Why would I hate the Americans? I just hate the bombing, not the American people," said one of the young men as he sat on a grimy blanket on the floor of their room.
"I don't have any feelings for or against Saddam Hussein either. We just came here to preserve our own souls, to take refuge here. We're not soldiers by choice, we were doing our national service and we found ourselves on the front line," he said.