KIRKUK, Dec 23: Kurdish and Arab students clashed on Tuesday in the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk as US troops rounded up suspected anti-US guerillas.

An Iraqi policeman was wounded during clashes between Kurdish and Arab students in Kirkuk, 255 kilometres north of Baghdad, where ethnic tensions are on the rise.

The policeman was trying to separate the fighting students and three Kurdish students and one Turkmen were arrested following the tussle at Kirkuk’s Technical College, according to Police Captain Athir Ghazi.

The fight erupted after Kurdish students refused to allow the Iraqi flag to be raised. The college’s dean then asked students to lower all Kurdish, Turkmen and Iraqi flags, but the Kurdish students refused and students came to blows.

The US forces, accompanied by Iraqi police, arrested 16 residents of two Arab neighbourhoods east and north of Kirkuk, according to police chief Khattab Abdullah Aref.

He said the men were suspected of “aiding attacks against US forces and police”, and of having planned a foiled attack against a US base at Kirkuk airport on Sunday evening.

Police had said previously that they arrested four people in connection with the attempted attack and another one targeting a giant fuel depot.

Kirkuk and the surrounding areas are the scene of frequent attacks against oil infrastructure and pipelines, which have worsened Iraq’s current fuel shortage.

RAID: US forces raided the headquarters of a Kurdish group, Jamaa Islamiya, arresting 20 people suspected of having links to Ansar al Islam, said police sources and a human rights activist in Kirkuk, Muayad Ibrahim Ahmed.

Jamaa’s leader Ali Bapir was arrested on July 10 by US forces.

The US State Department has alleged that Ansar al Islam, which operates in northeastern Iraq, has close links to the Al Qaeda network.

With the capture of Saddam Hussein 10 days ago, the Kurds are now boldly staking claim to Kirkuk, demanding it be made part of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Some 10,000 Kurds demonstrated in Kirkuk on Monday, fuelling the mistrust among the ethnically diverse city’s Arab and Turkmen population.

The demonstration coincided with a serious push by Kurdish members of the interim Governing Council for the establishment of a federal Iraq, with Kurdish autonomy in the north, ahead of a constitutional convention promised for 2005.

The Kurdish leaders in the Governing Council are demanding a major expansion of Kurdish autonomy beyond three northern provinces, which rebel factions ruled, to include Tamim, home to Kirkuk, and parts of the ethnically mixed provinces of Nineveh and Diyala.

The Kurdish initiative prompted Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul on Monday to warn against any move “endangering the territorial integrity and political unity of Iraq”. —AFP