Paratroopers open new front against Saddam

US troops yesterday parachuted into Kurdish-held northern Iraq to open a new front against President Saddam Hussein, as relentless bombing shook Baghdad for an eighth day.

Iraq said the week-old conflict had caused more than 4000 civilian casualties, including more than 350 dead.

"This is the beginning of the northern front," a US defence official said, after 1000 paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade jumped into northern Iraq before dawn.

This correspondent later saw about 100 US soldiers and two transport helicopters that had landed at the Harir airfield, 75km northeast of the Kurdish city of Arbil.

Kurdish fighters were seen helping the Americans. Only 1000 paratroopers have landed so far, but the US military said they would support "a robust flow of follow-on forces".

Three mighty explosions hit central Baghdad in the afternoon after dozens of blasts jangled the nerves of sleepless residents overnight, Reuters correspondent Samia Nakhoul reported.

"There were three very powerful blasts, close by," she said.

"There are warplanes overhead and anti-aircraft fire."

Issuing the Iraqi casualty figures, Health Minister Umeed Midhat Mubarak said 36 civilians had died in air raids on the capital in the past 24 hours.

With clear skies replacing the blinding sandstorms of the previous two days, Iraqi troops set fire to more oil-filled trenches around Baghdad, sending black smoke billowing up to try to hamper US and British pilots attacking the city.

A US official said the better weather would allow more military operations in the next few days.

British tanks destroyed 14 Iraqi tanks and four armoured troop carriers making the latest of several desperate attempts to break out of the southern city of Basra.

"It was a very quick, short, sharp engagement. They were all destroyed," British spokesman Captain Al Lockwood said.

US-led forces smashed a column of Iraqi tanks and armoured vehicles that tried to move south from Basra overnight. On Tuesday, a British naval commander said his forces had blocked a similar attempted breakout by up to 50 tanks.

A week ago US President George W Bush launched the war with a bomb and missile strike aimed at killing Saddam.

The Iraqi leader survived to urge his people to resist an invasion that has been slowed by fierce guerrilla-style attacks.

Bush hailed the fast advance north from Kuwait, but said the war was "far from over", changing a speech at the last minute to erase an assessment that the campaign was "ahead of schedule".

Worried investors took note. Oil and safe-haven gold and bond prices rose, the dollar eased and share prices sank.

The commander of British forces in the Gulf said it would take three months and about $US1 billion ($NZ1.84 billion) to repair Iraq's neglected giant Rumaila oilfield, allowing exports to flow.

The arrival of paratroopers from a US base in Italy is a move to threaten Baghdad from the north. Turkey threw a spanner into earlier US war plans by refusing to let up to 62,000 American troops cross its territory into Iraq.

The paratroops, to be reinforced with tanks, could menace Iraqi Republican Guards who have been girding for battle south of the capital rather than in the north.

A British defence source said the first priority of the paratroops was to bolster Kurdish lines, not to attack Baghdad.

The new force is still tiny compared with the tens of thousands of soldiers pushing across the southern desert towards Baghdad. Some US critics have said even those units are too light and that their supply lines are dangerously stretched.

The United States said it would fly more than 30,000 troops to the Gulf within days to reinforce the 280,000-strong US-British force already committed to the campaign.

US and British troops have battled Iraqis all over the south, from the Gulf port of Umm Qasr to Kerbala, experiencing setbacks that have included helicopter crashes, "friendly fire" casualties and hit-and-run raids on their supply lines.

Truck convoys hauling food and ammunition to combat troops look increasingly like a chink in the invasion force's armour.

In a surprise attack witnessed by Reuters correspondent Matthew Green yesterday, a small group of lightly-armed Iraqis pinned down a column of some 80 logistics vehicles.

Gunfire crackling from mist-shrouded trees by the roadside sent Marines dashing for cover behind vehicles, before tanks smashed through the undergrowth to hunt down the attackers.

"We couldn't see who was shooting at us," said US Marine Lance-Corporal John Grimes, 19, who dived back into his truck without firing a shot at the hidden assailants.

US and British forces say they have suffered 42 dead and four missing, in combat and accidents.

As US-British losses rose, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told Lebanon's as-Safir newspaper that the invasion of Iraq was angering the Arab world and would fail.

"The United States and Britain will not be able to control all of Iraq. There will be much tougher resistance," he said.

Arabs, seething with fury over the attack on Iraq, have protested almost daily in many countries since the war began.

Bush was due to discuss war strategy with his ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Camp David today.

Their talks will also cover humanitarian relief and post-war reconstruction. Blair favours a stronger role for the United Nations in post-war Iraq than Bush envisages.

The first humanitarian aid has only dripped into Iraq and plans to ship food in through Umm Qasr were delayed by another day after a mine was found near the port.

Tired and thirsty Iraqi civilians trudged out of Basra, seeking water, news of friends and shelter from fighting.

Reuters correspondent David Fox, at a bridge just south of Iraq's second city, said a British military official told him some 3000 Iraqis, mostly men, had walked out of Basra between 6 and 10am.

"Every one of them asked for water," Fox said of Iraqis he spoke to, who looked parched and carried empty water bottles.

The United Nations and international aid agencies have expressed alarm at a humanitarian crisis in Basra, which has been short of water and cut off from electricity for days.

Iraq fired a missile at Kuwait but it was intercepted by a Patriot missile, a Kuwaiti Defence Ministry spokesman said.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq