Black Hawk helicopter down in Iraq

3pm

A US Army Black Hawk helicopter has been shot down by small arms fire in southern Iraq, killing seven and wounding four, a US official said today.

The helicopter was shot down near Kerbala, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Search and rescue personnel were at the scene, the official said, adding: "They were pulling people out."

The Army's 3rd Infantry Division has been fighting Iraqi troops, including Republican Guard forces, in Karbala.

Today US forces thrust toward Baghdad, smashing two of Iraq's elite Republican Guard divisions, and the Pentagon said they were now "threatening the core of the regime" of President Saddam Hussein.

Backed by fearsome air power, US armoured forces moved on the Iraqi capital from two directions. US forces also seized a dam over the Euphrates River northwest of Baghdad.

"The dagger is clearly pointed at the heart of the Baghdad regime," US Brig Gen Vincent Brooks said.

Major General Stanley McChrystal, vice director for operations for the US military's Joint Staff, said two of the six Republican Guard divisions that had been guarding the approaches to Baghdad had effectively ceased to exist as viable military forces after days of pulverising air strikes preceding the ground attack.

"I would say that the Medina and Baghdad divisions are no longer credible forces," McChrystal said. "It's clearly threatening Baghdad and threatening the core of the regime."

Although the Pentagon officially said US troops were now 48km from Baghdad, a military source told a Reuters correspondent with the 3rd Infantry that vanguard units were 16km closer to the southern edges of the capital of some 5 million people.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned that difficult fighting lay ahead as US forces attempted to break into the capital.

A huge explosion rocked central Baghdad early on Thursday and blasts shook the south of the city.

US war headquarters in Qatar said US-led forces dropped almost 40 "smart bombs" overnight on a military storage facility in the Karkh district of Baghdad.

City defenders have been preparing for urban warfare. Pick-up trucks equipped with machine guns and anti-aircraft guns are dotted across the city.

US forces would like to avoid street fighting in Baghdad, which might take a heavy toll in military and civilian casualties. But planners believe this prospect is increasingly likely as Saddam prepares to stage his last stand in the city.

McChrystal said the United States had fired 700 cruise missiles, which cost over US$1 million each, and more than 10,000 precision-guided bombs since the war began two weeks ago.

In the north, US planes bombed Iraqi troops, forcing them to retreat in several areas in such a hurry that they abandoned valuable supplies of ammunition and injectors containing the nerve gas antidote atropine. An Iranian cameraman working for the BBC tripped a mine in the area and was killed.

On the approaches to Baghdad, US Marines seized a vital bridge over the Tigris river and then pushed along its northern bank toward the Iraqi capital, while the 3rd Infantry Division thrust northwards after encircling the Shi'ite Muslim shrine city of Kerbala.

President George W Bush launched the war two weeks ago to oust Saddam and destroy his alleged weapons of mass destruction. Iraq denied having such weapons and so far none have been found.

Iraqi television showed Saddam smiling and laughing in a meeting with ministers, hours after speculation swirled around world financial markets that he might be dead or wounded. It was unclear if the pictures were new and the footage did nothing to diminish such rumours.

In Baghdad, bombs killed several motorists in a blast on a building that also damaged a Red Crescent hospital across the street from which patients had earlier been evacuated. At least five cars were crushed and their drivers burned to death.

Russia called in the US ambassador to Moscow to protest against air strikes it said had hit Baghdad's residential districts and endangered the lives of diplomats still working at its embassy.

In Ankara, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said he had agreed with Turkey on measures to ship supplies through Turkish territory to US forces fighting in northern Iraq.

Brooks said the thrust toward Baghdad had taken some US troops across a "red line" -- into the area where the military believes Iraqi forces might be most likely to launch a poison-gas attack.

"If it's used, we'll be prepared," he said.

Iraqi official statements disputed reports of US successes and insisted its soldiers maintained high morale.

Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said air strikes had killed 24 civilians and wounded 186 in the past 24 hours, with 10 dead and 90 wounded in Baghdad alone.

It said its military had killed five infantry soldiers in the last 24 hours from the US-led force, destroyed 11 tanks, 27 armored personnel carriers, a fighter plane, two Apache helicopters, one unmanned drone and another military vehicle. US and British forces have reported no such losses.

Iraq says more than 650 civilians have been killed and more than 4000 wounded during the war. There is no way to independently verify these figures and Iraq has not given information of its military casualties.

The United States lists 53 dead and 11 missing. Britain says it has suffered 27 dead.

"No matter how many Iraqi civilians they kill, this will make us even stronger and even more determined to repel the invasion and to defeat them," Sahaf said.

Sahaf accused the Americans of bombing holy shrines in the city of Najaf. But Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said Iraqi forces in Najaf were firing from inside the gold-domed shrine of Ali, one of the holiest sites for Shi'ite Muslims. The Americans did not return fire, she said.

US soldier Jessica Lynch, held as a prisoner of war by Iraq for more than a week until US special forces freed her, arrived in Germany for treatment at an American military hospital. She has two broken legs and a broken arm.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq war