MOSUL, April 2 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Twenty-one Iraqi civilians were killed and 75 wounded in U.S.-British bombing of the Bartalah region, east of Mosul, Al-Jazeera reported Wednesday, April, 2.

The area was pounded by B-52 bombers, confirmed the correspondent of the Qatar-based satellite television channel.

He reported the city was under bombardment by U.S. and British warplanes for more than two hours, sending towering columns of smoke skyward.

The correspondent said the bombing targeted an area between Mosul and Dohuk province, northeast of the city, where Iraqi army forces are believed to be massed.

Mosul is a majority-Arab city of 1.5 million in a mostly Kurdish area.

Kurdish rebels advanced on two roads towards Mosul on Wednesday after Iraqi troops fell back on the northern metropolis overnight, Kurdish security sources and military commanders claimed.

"The Iraqis fell back 10 to 15 kilometers (six to nine miles) around Guwer overnight," one of the sources told AFP, asking not be identified.

"The peshmerga (Kurdish fighters) advanced 10 to 15 kilometers.

"There was no fighting," the source said, alleging the withdrawal as "a defeat for the Iraqis."

Guwer itself was not yet under rebel control, the security source admitted, adding that the nearby villages of Hawera and Shamshula remained in government hands.

"The peshmergas advanced at about 10:30 am (0830 GMT) on Wednesday from their last control post at Jumka Bimberiz to Shamamir," Aval Sanger, a local commander, told AFP.

He said there was no combat, but that Kurdish forces fired missiles on Iraqi vehicles.

U.S. forces were on the scene later, according to the same commander.

An AFP correspondent in the Lajan area, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of Mosul, said a former Iraqi military camp was now under the control of the Kurdish rebels.

Another Kurdish military commander, Salim Murad, claimed the Iraqis abandoned four military camps in Guwer and that many of the civilians in the village fled with the retreating Iraqis.

The Guwer area has come under regular Anglo-American strikes since the outbreak of war on March 20, Kurdish officials said.

They alleged that Kurdish villagers expelled from the area in the 1980s were waiting at checkpoints for an all-clear to return to their former homes.

A regional Kurdish official also reported a similar pullback, further north, as Iraqi troops withdrew by 15 to 20 kilometres (nine to 13 miles) in the Bardarash region.

Omar Osman said that in their advance towards Bardarash at dawn, a Kurdish rebel was killed after being hit by Iraqi shelling.