Paratroopers take northern Iraq airfield, says US

11.45am

WASHINGTON - US Army troops parachuted into and took control of a key airfield in northern Iraq today, becoming the first sizeable American military presence on the ground in that part of the country, defence officials said.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said elements of the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Italy, parachuted into the airfield. They would not give the precise location of the airfield or the number of troops involved.

An official said equipment for the troops would be following soon but did not say how it would be delivered. The official said the paratroopers represented the first US force of any significant size to land in northern Iraq in the war.

Another official said that before this operation, several hundred special forces troops had been operating on the ground in northern Iraq.

Earlier in the day, US warplanes pounded Iraqi positions in the north. Five large explosions threw up plumes of black smoke on the hilltops overlooking Chamchamal, a town in the Kurd-controlled Iraqi enclave wrested from Baghdad after the 1991 Gulf War.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq