US forces push on after daylight raids

5.45am

BAGHDAD - The United States and Britain have unleashed their first daylight air strikes on Baghdad after pounding it with a fearsome night blitz.

As warplanes attacked targets across Iraq, US forces said they had captured a vital bridge over the Euphrates river, about 375 km southeast of Baghdad, and were battling towards Iraq's second city of Basra further south.

Repeated air raids rocked Baghdad through the day after a devastating night bombardment that set off giant fireballs, thunderous explosions and mushroom clouds, reddening the sky in a major intensification of the three-day-old war.

"So this is what they meant by 'shock and awe'," said a shaken taxi driver, referring to the Pentagon's description of bombing on a scale designed to terrify Iraq into submission.

US Army General Tommy Franks, commander of the invasion, said tough days might lie ahead for the British and US invaders, but added that the outcome was not in doubt.

"This will be a campaign unlike any other in history. A campaign characterised by shock, by surprise, by flexibility... and by the application of overwhelming force," he said in his first briefing since the attack on Iraq began on Thursday.

Reporters travelling with US and British forces across southern Iraq said troops had run into sporadic resistance which was sometimes proving tougher to dislodge than expected.

A journalist with Sky TV said four US soldiers he was travelling with were killed in central Iraq on Saturday after their vehicles were hit with grenades. There was no immediate confirmation of the deaths.

However, a US officer near the city of Nassiriya said forces trying to clear a path to the capital had secured an important bridge over the Euphrates after overcoming Iraqi soldiers who had held up the US advance on Friday.

"We've established checkpoints at both ends" of the bridge, he said.

In a defiant response to the repeated bombing raids, Iraq's information minister said the attacks were the work of an "international gang of criminal bastards" and had wounded more than 200 civilians in Baghdad.

Health Minister Umeed Midhat Mubarak said later that at least three people had been "martyred" in the raids on Baghdad.

Red Cross workers saw at least 100 people described as war-wounded in a Baghdad hospital, but said they could not confirm the casualty figures given by Iraqi officials.

As sun set, Iraqi forces lit oil-filled trenches around the city in an apparent bid to create a smokescreen over Baghdad to hinder the air strikes. Military experts said such tactics would not halt the US arsenal of "smart" bombs and as darkness fell, five fresh explosions rocked Baghdad as a new air raid began.

The intensifying hostilities drew fresh anti-war protests around the world, with thousands of people taking to the streets in Asian and Arab countries, including in Bahrain and Oman -- two Gulf states that host US forces.

"The bombing and violence we're seeing on satellite TV should stir the ire of every Arab who sees it," said Amr Moussa, the head of the 22-member Arab League.

Pope John Paul said the war threatened humanity. "Violence and weapons can never resolve the problems of man," he said.

US and British officials said they were doing everything they could to limit casualties, stressing that their argument was with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his inner circle, not the Iraqi people.

"The lights stayed on in Baghdad, but the instruments of tyranny are collapsing," Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon told a news conference in London.

Aid agencies said up to half a million Iraqis had fled cities in the northern Kurdish areas ahead of the US-led invasion, moving their families to outlying villages.

American Marines said their tanks were assaulting Iraqi forces defending the southern city of Basra.

"We are attacking Iraqi forces, all of which are west of Basra," Captain Andrew Bergen told reporters in the area. "I would certainly say it's a major battle."

A British spokesman said US-led forces were hoping to negotiate Basra's surrender, but gave no details. General Franks said later his forces had no plans for confrontation in Basra.

He added that to date, US and British troops had taken between 1,000-2,000 prisoners of war. Reuters correspondents with US units said rank and file Iraqi troops appeared ill-equipped as they surrendered, with some walking barefoot.

British Defence Chief of Staff Michael Boyce said Iraq's 51st Division had surrendered en masse in Basra. An Iraqi military spokesman denied this.

The renewed raids on Baghdad meant daylight brought no respite to frightened residents. Two missiles slammed into Saddam's main palace compound at dawn, sending up a cloud of pulverised concrete from what appeared to have been a bunker.

The Iraqi leader has deployed his best troops, including elite Republican Guard units, in Baghdad, where he may try to draw the invaders into street fighting that would neutralise some of their overwhelming technological advantages.

A Kurdish faction running part of northern Iraq said US forces had fired missiles and launched an air raid on Saturday on the mountain stronghold of Ansar al-Islam, a group Washington accuses of ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

Mustafa Sayyid Qadir, a Kurdish commander in the town of Halabja, said there may have been at least 100 casualties in the raids, but these estimates could not be confirmed.

Later on Saturday a car bomb exploded close to the border with Iran killing at least one journalist wounding nine other people. Kurdish officials blamed Ansar for the attack.

US Marines in southern Iraq said they were well placed to strike into the heart of the country after an arduous desert trek put them astride the main highway to the capital.

Exhausted soldiers tried to catch some sleep, repair battered vehicles and refuel before pushing on towards Baghdad, which lies some 500 km (310 miles) from the Kuwaiti border.

On the border area, US Marines still faced resistance in Umm Qasr, Iraq's only deep-water port.

"We did meet some resistance, it's probably not going as quick as we would have liked," said Colonel Thomas Waldhauser, commander of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. British military spokesman Chris Vernon said the battle for the city was the toughest fight of the war so far.

Two British naval helicopters collided over the Gulf, killing six British crewmen and an American officer. On Thursday, eight British marines and four US Marines died when their helicopter crashed in Kuwait.

The United States and Britain say they went to war to deprive Iraq of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons that could one day become a threat. Iraq denies having such weapons.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq