Turkish troops enter northern Iraq

Turkey began sending troops across the border into Iraqi Kurdistan last night, a move which threatens to open a "war within the war" and hugely complicate the American military strategy in Iraq.

The Turkish foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, announced the incursion after an apparent breakthrough for the coalition's northern front yesterday, when Ankara finally gave overflight rights to US planes.

During the days of hard bargaining Turkey demanded the right to send troops into Iraq as a condition for allowing the overflights. But enraged US officials said last night that Washington had not agreed and had told Turkey to "stay the hell out".

About 1,000 Turkish soldiers crossed the border, augmenting the several thousand it has there to pursue Turkish Kurd guerrillas. Another 5,000 were moving through Turkey to mass on the border.

Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, said: "We have special forces units connected to Kurdish forces in the north ... and you can be certain that we have advised the Turkish government and the Turkish armed forces that it would be notably unhelpful if they went into the north in large numbers."

The secretary of state, Colin Powell, visibly irritated, had said earlier: "We don't see any need for any Turkish incursions into northern Iraq."

"We told them to stay the hell out, and it is a major problem which we are going to be watching very closely today," an unnamed senior official told CNN.

Turkey said it would send troops to avert a humanitarian crisis in northern Iraq, to hold back a flood of refugees into Turkey, and to prevent terrorists crossing its border.

Mr Gul said. "A vacuum was formed in northern Iraq and that vacuum became practically a camp for terrorist activity. This time we do not want such a vacuum."

The US is deeply apprehensive of a secondary war if Kurdish fighters clash with the Turks, potentially bringing chaos to the coalition's attempt to advance on Baghdad from the north and threatening the Kirkuk oil fields.

Turkey fears instability and attempts by Iraqi Kurds to establish an independent state, perhaps by seizing control of the oil fields. The 4m Iraqi Kurds, for their part, fear that a Turkish force could take away their freedoms and condemn them to the same fate as Turkey's 13m Kurds.

The Turks entering north Iraq may begin hunting the remaining members of Kadek, the militant group formerly known as the PKK.

Last week, Osman Ocalan, brother of the group's imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan, promised a violent retaliation if Turkish troops crossed the border.

The US won its overflying rights after weeks of reversals, and they are only a fraction of the help it sought, which included stationing 62,000 service personnel there.

Iraqi Kurds living near the border were leaving their homes yesterday. Lieutenant Massoud Rushdi, a recent graduate from the Zakho military academy, said his wife and two sons were leaving because they knew that Turkish tanks could soon cross the bridge over the Zakho river and crush their 12-year experiment in self-rule.

"We decided that it was not safe for them to stay," he said. "If Turkey wants to help us fight Saddam, they are welcome. But if they come here to prevent us being free, we have the right to defend ourselves."

The Kurds of Zakho are preparing to resist. "We don't want to be liberated from Saddam only to be oppressed by Turkey," said Ahmed Barmani, a car mechanic. "I hate Turkey more than I do Saddam."

He joined his childhood friend Massoud to dig themselves into a defensive position overlooking the river.

"Wherever they try to cross, we'll be ready for them," he said.

The two friends were not alone. Several hundred peshmerga fighters from the villages around Zakho could be seen taking up positions in the hills.

There is little that they, lightly armed, can do to stop the Turks, who have the second biggest army in Nato.

But Babekir Zebari, a regional commander of the Kurdish military forces, said life would be made very difficult for Turkey if it tried to occupy the self-rule area.

"If they disturb our situation, we will disturb theirs," he said.

"Saddam has been unable to defeat us; neither will the Turkish generals."