] Two Iraqi helicopters fired machine guns and rockets into ] three Kurdish villages on the front line north of Kirkuk ] yesterday, in the first shots intended to kill in the ] coming war. ] ] ''There were two of them, one an attack helicopter and ] the other normally used for transport, attacking the ] villages where people herding cattle live," Mohammed ] Fateh, a local Kurdish military commander, said. ] ] Kurdish officers believe that the Iraqi helicopter attack ] on the three impoverished and half-ruined villages of ] Bashtapa, Girdalanka and Sherawa in the hills south-east ] of Qush Tappa was a desperate effort by the Iraqi army to ] raise the morale of its men and prove that its firepower ] is still to be reckoned with. Saddam's troops fire the first shots of the conflict |