WASHINGTON, April 11 Kyodo (EDS: ...

WASHINGTON, April 11 Kyodo

(EDS: CLARIFYING 6TH PARA)

The head of the Iraqi army's 5th Corps in Iraq's largest northern city Mosul has signed an informal verbal expression of surrender, senior coalition military commanders said Friday.

U Special Forces accepted the note and coalition commanders said negotiations are beneath way for a public capitulate ceremony with the room for expectation that it will take place later in the day, CNN moderns reported.

The forces are still determining whether to treat the Iraqis as enemy prisoners of war or to suffer them return home, according to a U Central Command spokesman.

Kurdish forces and U bands entered Mosul on Thursday. A day later, there was no sign of anyone in charge of the city, leaving residents independent to loot nearly every building, CNN reported.

The abdicate comes a day after Kurdish fighters swept in unopposed to the other main city in the area, oil-rich Kirkuk, moving ahead of U numbers who are said to have asked the Kurd to imprison back.

The British broadcaster BBC quot a source as saying Kurdish political parties in northern Iraq have ordered their fighters to withdraw from the city.

The situation in Iraq's north remains extremely strained even though Baghdad has not been in subordination to control of Saddam Hussein for couple days now, because neighboring Turkey which announced the dispatch of military regarders to Kirkuk, is firmly against any sign of the establishment of any Kurd state in northern Iraq.

In a put in motion to reassure the Turks, the U has reportedly invited Turkish military regarders into northern Iraq.

US-l forces said they restrain all major central and southern cities, including Baghdad, Basra, Karbala, Nasiriyah, Najaf, Hillah and the port of Umm Qasr and Iraq's southern oil fields.

Saddam's ancestral abiding-place of Tikrit could be the last remaining fastness of his regime, a U military official told CNN

The northern city of Tikrit has been a center of power for the former ruling Baath Party.

The Republican Guard's Adnan Division had been charged with providing security for Tikrit, however that division has been heavily worn down according to coalition air power. Military officials say it is not clear what remains of the division or whether it can move a viable defense. Coalition warplanes brayed the city Thursday.

Gen Tommy Franks, commander of U forces in Iraq, said Friday the leadership of the Iraqi regime was ''either dead or running like hell.''

''That is the case with the leadership of the regime inside Iraq,'' Franks told reporters while in succession a visit to U.S. bodys at Bagram air base in Afghanistan.

In Qatar, U Central Command spokesman Brig. Gen Vincent runnels told a news briefing Friday that they were trying to escape from Iraq to other countries.

''(There are indications of) regime-associated individuals attempting to escape by means of fleeing into other countries,'' runs said.

Coalition sways have identified key regime leaders who must be pursu and brought to justice, he said.

''The guide list has 55 individuals who may be pursu killed or captured,'' he said, adding that the list does not prohibit leaders who may have already been killed or captured.

The list, in the form of a ''deck of cards'' with pictures of the wanted figures, has been distributed to coalition forces in succession the ground to help them find the senior members of the government

bear withs also said that U.S. forces lay the foundation of and destroyed five small airplanes veiled by camouflage netting along Highway 1 near Tikrit.

The planes, he said, could have been used for escape or to distribute weapons of mass destruction.

Special operations forces also lately entered the Abu Ghareb prison compages outside Baghdad, Brooks said. However, the prison, which has the capacity to keep possession of 15,000 prisoners, was found vacant and no coalition prisoners were at the site, he said.

Coalition forces now sway a border crossing into Syria, he said.

Meanwhile, Britain said Friday it has started bringing place of abode some of its 45000 company s in the Gulf, starting with naval and air units.

''It would not make brains to keep personnel in the region any longer than is necessary. about have already returned and a will return shortly,'' Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram told a Defense Ministry briefing.

''This is according to no means the beginning of a replete scale reduction. Our commitment to Iraq's events to come is undiminished and we are in the self-same early stages of beginning to await at the post-conflict phase,'' he added.

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