KIFREY, IRAQ - Iraqi forces shelled this village in the Kurdish autonomous region of northern Iraq on Wednesday, and fighter jets of the U.S.-led coalition targeted Iraqi positions 100 miles north of Baghdad.<br>
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Iraqi mortar and missile attacks a day earlier killed three civilians and wounded a dozen others in Kifrey, a village of 27,000 on the front line between Iraqi and Kurdish forces. Several Kurdish fighters were among the wounded.<br>
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Although the Iraqis have lobbed shells at front line Kurdish villages, this was the first known concentrated artillery assault on the Kurds.<br>
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Three-quarters of Kifrey's residents fled and artillery fire continued Wednesday, aimed mostly at a Kurdish bunker in the nearby village of Karez.<br>
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Kurdish military commander Mola Bakhtiyar said the barrage Tuesday began after American aircraft launched airstrikes on Baghdad-controlled barracks across the front line.<br>
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The Iraqis retreated, and villagers and Kurdish fighters began moving in on their abandoned positions, seizing six military vehicles, dozens of light weapons and some artillery.<br>
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"As coalition forces get nearer to Iraqi cities, Saddam Hussein will react even more furiously than he has now," said Bakhtiyar, a leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.<br>
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Bakhtiyar describes Kifrey's position as strategic - at a crossing of routes to the oil center Kirkuk, to Saddam's hometown and power base Tikrit, and to Baghdad, less than 100 miles to the south.<br>
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In a statement read Wednesday on Iraqi state television, Saddam warned Kurdish leaders against cooperating with U.S. forces in northern Iraq. "I advise you not to rush and do something that you'll regret so long as you know that this leadership and the government it leads in the face of invaders will remain," according to the statement, read by Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf.
