IRAQI BACKED Kurdish guerrillas said they captured two key towns yesterday in their advance on their rivals in northern Iraq. Meanwhile, the United States launched a mission to broker a ceasefire.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) said it captured Dukan to the west and Qala Diza to the north of Sulaymaniyah, the last major city in northern Iraq, held by the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
The militia predicted the fall of Sulaymaniyah within 48 hours. The official Iranian news agency IRNA said PUK leaders had begun reparations to evacuate Sulaymaniyah.
IRNA also said the pro Iranian Kurdish Hizbullah group had, handed over territory under its, control in northern Iraq to the advancing KDP forces to prevent further bloodshed.
Earlier KDP guerrillas led by Mr Massoud Barzani were "pounding Dukan with howitzers while the PUK men are fighting back with mortar fire," an aid worker said. Dukan which is the site of a hydro electric plant that provides power to much of Iraqi Kurdistan, controls access to Sulaymaniyah.
A KDP statement issued late yesterday said: "Qala Diza has fallen to the KDP and the Iranian backed PUK was pushed back towards the Iranian border. After heavy fighting the KDP controls Dukan town and Dukan dam."
The PUK launched a counter offensive against Mr Barzani's forces 10 days ago, recapturing Sulaymaniyah and other territory it lost last month to the Kurdish faction backed by President Saddam Hussein.
But late last week the KDP began a counterattack of its own, seizing Koysanjak, the hometown of the PUK leader, Mr Jalal Talabani, on Friday, and the town of Ranya on Saturday.
The US Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East Mr Robert Pelletreau, arrived in Ankara yesterday for, talks with Mr Barzani and Mr Talabani in a bid to secure a truce.
According to the PUK, Mr Pelletreau will meet Mr Barzani in Silopi near the Turkey Iraq border and will hold talks with Mr Talabani in Ankara tomorrow.
The upsurge in fighting has brought new fears of an exodus of refugees from north Iraq.
In the south eastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir the US has completed a new operation to evacuate more than 700 Iraqi dissidents from northern Iraq into Turkey.
Some 730 people crossed the border gate of Habur and were taken to a camp in Silopi town on Saturday and early yesterday. The group was expected to be flown to the US military base on the Pacific island of Guam.
The dissidents fled their homes in Irbil and Sulaymaniyah during the KDP offensive last month.