The northern city of Mosul fell into Kurdish and U.S. hands Friday after Iraqi forces abandoned one of their last strongholds, touching off looting and celebrations in the streets. Townspeople plundered the central bank, grabbing wads of money and throwing bills in the air. Mosul University's library, with its rare manuscripts, was also sacked, despite appeals blared from the mosque minarets to the people to stop destroying their city, the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera reported.People waved flags of the Kurdish Democratic Party.

Just a day earlier, the key northern oil city of Kirkuk also fell with barely a fight. U.S. commanders said Iraqi forces might be planning a last stand in Saddam Hussein's birthplace of Tikrit, the last major population center still in Iraqi hands.

As the Iraqis left Mosul, U.S.-backed Kurdish forces reached the outskirts of the country's third-largest city and set up checkpoints leading into the town center.

Abu Dhabi TV showed pictures of the looting of the Central Bank branch. Bills littered the street. One person was seen carrying a pack of Iraqi dinars. Another had what appeared to be stacks of bound packages of Iraqi dinars stuffed under his T-shirt.

Gunmen, apparently Kurdish fighters, arrived at the bank and started swinging their rifles and firing into the air to force looters to leave.

"What is happening shouldn't happen," said one man of the looting. "This is barbaric. This is not Saddam's money. This is the nation's and the people's money."

Another man said Saddam and "all the war criminals who have caused the destruction and the demise of Iraq " should be put on trial "for the deaths of people for the past 30 years."

A third man complained about the looting of the bank: "This is people's money. I have an account in the bank. All my money is gone."

One man climbed to the roof of a building to dismantle an antenna.

On the square in front of the Government House, people set fire to a picture of Saddam. Citizens walked into the abandoned building out of curiosity. One man walked out with a filing cabinet; another stuffed the trunk of a taxi with looted goods, including a TV aerial.

U.S.-led forces started moving into Mosul early Friday, according to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. He said small numbers of U.S. and Kurdish forces had started entering the city to begin taking weapons from Iraqi forces.

As the northern cities fell into coalition hands, thousands of young Iraqi soldiers abandoned their positions and walked south toward Baghdad on Friday, making their way home on a blacktop highway in the strong sun. The unarmed men, some of them barefoot, wore civilian clothes and carried little or nothing; some said it might take seven days to reach their hometowns.

In Kirkuk, Kurdish fighters roamed unchallenged through the streets of the city of 100,000, looters emptied government buildings down to the bathroom fixtures and statues of Saddam lay broken in the dust.

The capture of Kirkuk left Iraq's No. 2 oil region almost fully intact. Coalition leaders had feared retreating Iraqi forces might set the fields ablaze, but only one well fire raged near Kirkuk.

The United States had asked Kurdish forces not to enter Kirkuk for fear of alarming Turkey. But when the Kurds went in anyway, U.S. special operations forces were sent in to accompany them and were soon joined by elements of the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade, which parachuted into northern Iraq weeks ago, the Pentagon said.

The Turks fear that Iraq's Kurds will set up an independent state and fire up separatist sentiment among Kurds living in Turkey.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said he promised Turkey the Kurds would pull out and be replaced by U.S. invasion troops.
Jalal Talabani, leader of one of the factions whose forces entered the city, told Turkish television that all Kurdish fighters would leave by the end of Friday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said his country has U.S. approval to send military observers to Kirkuk to make sure the Kurdish fighters keep their word.

PHOTO CAPTION

The shadow of a Kurdish fighter holding a weapon is cast on a truck bearing the emblem of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Friday, April 11, 2003, about 18 miles north of Mosul, northern Iraq . Kurdish military leaders said Friday that remnants of Saddam Hussein's forces had offered to surrender if they were granted amnesty and if coalition bombing stopped. The emblem reads : Kurdistan Democratic Party, Peace, Freedom, Democracy. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)