Uprising reported in Basra

10.25am

UPDATE - US planes hammered positions of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's trusted Republican Guard defending Baghdad today as reports were received of an uprising against Iraq in the southern city of Basra.

This came as the British defence ministry reported that two British soldiers were killed by "friendly fire" near Basra. Two others were seriously injured.


The four-man crew of a Challenger II tank were battling with Iraqi forces west of Basra when they were mistakenly targeted by another Challenger.


"In the heat of battle there is always a risk that incidents such as this may occur," said Colonel Chris Vernon, a British military spokesman in Kuwait.


He said accidents could happen "regardless of thorough training, careful planning, excellent night-viewing equipment, and combat identification measures".

Major General Peter Wall, the British chief of staff at the headquarters of the US-led invasion force said reports of residents on the streets of Iraq's second city suggested that a popular revolt might just have started there.

"There are early indications that just might be started and we will be very keen to capitalise on it," Major General Wall told reporters in Qatar.

"We aren't seeing anything, we're just hearing reports that there are people who are appearing on the streets in significant numbers and who are essentially being less compliant with the regime than they are normally."

Iraq's information minister categorically denied the reports, which boosted stock prices and depressed oil prices on the sixth day of a war launched to topple Saddam over allegations that he is hiding weapons of mass destruction.

But an Iran-based opposition group said an uprising had begun in the city, a stronghold of Shi'ite Muslims who staged a crushed revolt after the 1991 Gulf War.

As speculation about Basra swirled, large explosions rocked Baghdad and Iraqi television briefly went off air.

Reuters correspondent Samia Nakhoul said several large explosions were heard after a day of sustained raids on the outskirts of the capital.

An official at Iraq's television station blamed a "technical problem in the transmitters" for the blackout.

To the south, US armoured columns, slowed by blinding sandstorms, closed in for the decisive battle for the capital.

Reuters correspondents with US columns advancing on Baghdad said choking dust storms had cut visibility to five metres in places and brought convoys to a halt at times.

"Weather has had an impact on the battlefield with high winds, with some rain, with some thunderstorms," US Major-General Victor Renuart told a briefing at the Qatar headquarters of the US-led force.

He said US forces were able to keep up pressure on Republican Guard targets in Saddam's power base in and around Baghdad thanks to all-weather, precision-guided weapons.

The Medina Division of Republican Guards stands between Baghdad and US armoured columns that have thrust to the Kerbala area, 95km south of the capital.

"The Medina division is now under heavy air attack although poor weather will hamper this," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in London.

But as the battle front moved closer to Baghdad, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, cautioned about what lay ahead. "We think the toughest fighting is ahead of us," he said.

US Marines finally punched past Iraqi resistance to cross the Euphrates river at Nassiriya in the south.

As the Marine convoy pushed north, it passed the corpses of at least 30 Iraqis, apparently killed in an air strike that hit buses, trucks and cars some 20km north of Nassiriya.

All the dead were men, some of them wearing the black clothes of Iraqi irregular forces. Other men, many of them wounded, were taken prisoner by US Marines.

With the Marine force now across the Euphrates at Nassiriya, a separate military column was heading up the main Basra-Baghdad highway, which crosses the river to the west of Nassiriya.

Saddam urged Iraqi tribesmen to join the battle against US and British forces, without waiting for further orders.

"The enemy has violated your lands and now they are violating your tribes and families," the Iraqi leader said in a statement read on his behalf on state television.

Military spokesmen told reporters at Central Command in Qatar that US paratroopers had seized a desert landing strip overnight and that six Iraqi jamming systems aimed at disrupting US satellite positioning equipment had been destroyed.

In the far south, British and US commanders said they had finally snuffed out resistance by Iraqi gunmen in the deepwater port of Umm Qasr, which could now be opened to aid supplies for the hungry and thirsty local population.

British forces south of Basra blocked an attempted breakout by up to 50 Iraqi tanks seeking to press southward from the edge of the city, a British naval commander said.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanded action to improve the humanitarian situation in Basra. "A city of that size cannot afford to go without electricity or water for long," he said.

Blair said he would visit the United States to meet President George W. Bush on Wednesday for the first time since the war began. Blair will also meet Annan on Thursday.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq