Kurdistan Observer

Mohammad did his sick father a favour by taking the family cow to graze, but the only grass around was in no-man's land between Kurdish and Iraqi state troops -- a shot rang out and the 14-year-old was dead.

Sporadic sniper fire from Iraqi government soldiers perched in bunkers on a ridge overlooking their houses is just a fact of life for the villagers of Shorosh on the front line between Baghdad forces and breakaway Kurdish peshmerga guerrillas.

While speculation mounts of a U.S. invasion of Iraq to topple President Saddam Hussein, this Iraqi war has been going on for years, largely ignored by most of the outside world.

"It was early morning and we went out with the animals," explained ashen-faced 15-year-old Mariwan. "They opened fire and the first shot hit my friend, we picked him up and carried him away and they fired again, but missed. By then he was dead."

Visibly shaking, but refusing to cry in front of the hardy bunch of Kurdish men standing round him, Mariwan has not taken any animals to graze ever since that day some two months ago.

RETALIATION

Mohammad's father, Rawf, had already lost another son in the Kurdish uprising against Saddam's rule at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. As government forces moved to smash the rebellion he fled to neighbouring Iran where his wife died of illness.

Were U.S. military strikes to come, the villagers could be the first to feel Iraqi retaliation. Even so, Rawf hopes Washington will act.

"Saddam has tortured us for too long and we have suffered so much," he said sitting cross-legged on the floor of his bare living room. "If America attacks and we know even in advance that we are going to die, still we would support that decision."

But villagers say things are quieter now that talk of a U.S. attack is in the air.

"Before it was difficult to stand here," said one of a group of men sheltering from the blazing sun in the shadow of house with walls pock-marked by bullet holes. "Since America began its pressure, they are quiet."

That is just as well, local Kurdish peshmerga fighters armed only with Kalashnikov assault rifles readily admit they are no match for the tanks and heavy armour ranged against them. Nevertheless, they say they are ready to fight to the death.

"No, by God," interrupts an old man slumped on the ground. "If they attack, we have to run away."

That is exactly what more than a million Kurds did in 1991 when U.S. support for their uprising against Saddam failed to materialise. Memories were fresh then, as they are still, of Iraqi chemical attacks that killed thousands of Kurds in 1998.

In the nearby border town of Chamchamal and the regional capital Sulaymaniyah, some 70 km (44 miles) to the north, the mood is calm, but thoughts of conflict and the nightmare of more chemical attacks are not far away.

PREPARING TO FLEE

While the bazaars of Sulaymaniyah do a bustling trade and there are even signs of a certain prosperity in the city of around 700,000, everyone follows the latest news from Washington closely with an eye on the possibility of having to get out.

"If the Iraqis attack, everyone will run away to Iran, there will be no one left in this city," said one bazaar merchant.

That is why Kurdish leaders, invited to Washington with other opposition chiefs next month, want public guarantees for their security from the U.S. administration this time round, one Western analyst said.

Meanwhile, despite the dangers and uncertainties of life in the shadow of Iraqi government guns, the Kurds of Shorosh are prepared to take their chances if U.S. strikes come.

"The Iraqis have burnt me out of my house five times, what does it matter if we lose everything again," said one man.