NASIRIYAH, Iraq, Nov 13 (AFP) - Iraqi security forces are massing in the northern capital of Mosul and will make a move "in the next day or so" to restore order, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on Saturday.
"Last night, Iraqi police and special forces arrived to Mosul," Allawi told a pool reporter while on a trip to the city of Nasiriyah, south of Baghdad.
"Today more Iraqi armed units will be arriving to Mosul. And we have been receiving calls from the mosques all over Mosul to ask the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police to intervene to restore law and order, and to get rid of the terrorists," the prime minister said.
"We will be moving in the next day or so in Mosul to restore the rule of law," he said, without giving details.
Demonstrating the lawlessness that has shaken Iraq's third city, looters rampaged through a palace in northern Mosul on Saturday that had been used by a foreign company, after the staff left, an AFP correspondent witnessed.
Cars and trucks crammed with people swarmed to the palace, where they were seen making off with food, equipment, clothes and even a mattress.
The scenes were reminiscent of a frenzy of looting that swept through cities across Iraq following last year's US-led invasion.
Lawlessness simmered in the rest of Mosul, where gunmen held key buildings, such as the provincial governor's office, and patrolled the streets in cars in the absence of Iraqi police or national guardsmen.
The militants instructed residents to go about their lives as normal as they were doing the job of the security forces.
Despite that, few people dared to venture out on to the streets and most shops remained closed in this city of more than a million people.
11/13/2004 17:01 GMT - AFP