- SOUTH OF BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters)
- U.S. forces smashed through elite Iraqi divisions to within 19 miles
of Baghdad on Wednesday, using fearsome air power to back the swiftest
advance of the war to oust President Saddam Hussein.
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- U.S. Marines seized a vital bridge over the Tigris River
and then raced along its northern bank toward the Iraqi capital, while
the 3rd Infantry Division thrust northward after encircling the Shi'ite
Muslim shrine city of Kerbala.
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- A military source told a Reuters correspondent with the
Third Infantry that vanguard units were just 19 miles from the southern
edges of the capital. Some had crossed to the eastern bank of the Euphrates
that lies on their route to Baghdad.
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- Forces pushing along the Tigris valley from the southeast
were as near as 25 miles away, the source said.
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- "The dagger is clearly pointed at the heart of the
Baghdad regime and will continue to be pointed at the heart of that regime,"
U.S. Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said.
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- However, Iraq dismissed as "illusions" reports
that U.S. forces had crossed the Tigris or made gains anywhere else.
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- Brooks said the thrusts had taken some U.S. troops across
a "red line" around Baghdad which the military believed could
trigger a poison gas attack by Iraqi forces.
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- "If it's used, we'll be prepared for it being used,"
he said. "It causes us to maintain protective postures of our forces
as they approach this area, but it doesn't make us stop."
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- The United States launched the war on March 20 to oust
Saddam and rid Iraq of the weapons of mass destruction whose existence
Baghdad denies. Invasion forces have yet to find any.
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- REPUBLICAN GUARD DIVISION "DESTROYED"
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- Brooks said U.S. troops had destroyed the Baghdad Division
of the Republican Guard near the town of Kut, 105 miles southeast of Baghdad,
and had fought two other Guard divisions.
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- Two huge American bombs exploded close to Kut, sending
giant mushroom clouds into the air, Reuters correspondent Sean Maguire,
traveling with the Marines, reported.
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- For the first time, B-52 bombers used six precision-guided
1,000-pound bombs spraying armor-destroying bomblets to stop an Iraqi tank
column on Tuesday, the military said.
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- Bombs also hit central Baghdad, killing several motorists
and hitting a Red Crescent hospital, Reuters correspondent Samia Nakhoul
reported. She said at least five cars had been crushed, with their drivers
burned to death inside.
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- Hospital sources said at least 25 people, including medical
staff and patients, had been wounded in the daylight raids, which also
pulverized buildings in a trade fair, next to a government security office
which was not visibly damaged.
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- Iraqi 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.
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- "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.
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- On world markets, the rapid U.S. offensive pleased investors
hoping for a speedy end to the war. Stocks and the dollar rose, oil tumbled
and traditional safe haven assets fell sharply.
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- Two powerful U.S. columns are now closing on the capital
from the south and southeast after an aerial bombardment that battered
elite units guarding the city for more than a week.
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- SADDAM MEETING REPORTED
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- Iraqi television said Saddam met officials, including
his two sons Uday and Qusay, but showed no footage of the meeting and there
was no independent confirmation that it had occurred.
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- Two messages read on television for Saddam on Tuesday
urged Iraqis to wage holy war on the invaders.
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- Long obsessed with his own security, the Iraqi leader
hardly ever appears in public or on live television, contributing to persistent
uncertainty about his whereabouts and health.
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- Soon after the television reported Saddam's meeting with
officials, planes bombed one of his palaces in central Baghdad.
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- "It was a very powerful explosion," Reuters
correspondent Nadim Ladki said as white smoke billowed from the area.
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- B-52s pummeled Iraqi frontlines near the city of Mosul
and bombed targets near the oil hub of Kirkuk, Reuters correspondent Jon
Hemming reported from Kurdish-held territory further north.
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- Helicopters and fighter planes strafed Fedayeen militia
active in Najaf, another Shi'ite shrine city in central Iraq.
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- Reuters correspondent Kieran Murray, with the 101st Airborne,
saw columns of smoke rise above Najaf after British Tornado aircraft bombed
the ruling Baath Party headquarters.
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- Sahaf said Iraqi forces had fought off a U.S. attack
on Najaf and accused the Americans of bombing shrines there.
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- A U.S. spokesman accused Iraqi forces in Najaf of firing
from the gold-domed shrine of Ali, one of the holiest sites for Shi'ite
Muslims. The Americans did not return fire, he said.
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- The advances on the Euphrates and Tigris, which flows
through Baghdad, came after U.S. troops halted their push for the capital
for several days to bolster vulnerable supply lines.
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- The commander of British forces in Iraq, Air Marshall
Brian Burridge, said the decisive phase of the war had begun but might
not end soon. "Decisive phases often take time," he said.
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- "We need to proceed with great delicacy in Baghdad
as we did in Basra because we don't want to cause any more damage to the
place than is necessary and we certainly don't want to add to civilian
casualties."
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- He cited the tactics of British forces who have surrounded
the southern city of Basra, staging a series of quick strikes into the
center to kill or capture forces loyal to Saddam. They have held back from
a frontal assault.
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- HEARTS AND MINDS
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- The British troops have been eager to win the trust of
civilians, while repelling sporadic paramilitary forays.
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- Three British tanks fired on a building on the edge of
Basra on Wednesday after three mortar rounds landed near a British checkpoint,
Reuters correspondent Michael Georgy reported.
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- In the southern city of Nassiriya, where U.S. forces
have faced tenacious resistance, Marines staged a decoy attack to cover
the rescue of a U.S. woman soldier, Jessica Lynch, 19.
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- Special forces plucked her from a hospital where she
had been held since her convoy was ambushed on March 23.
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- Lynch had two broken legs and a broken arm. The bodies
of two U.S. soldiers were also recovered from the hospital.
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- Iraq says more than 650 civilians have been killed and
more than 4,000 wounded during the war. Grisly television images of Iraqi
casualties have fueled Arab anger over the invasion.
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- The United States has paid little heed to the diplomatic
fallout from the Iraq conflict, but Secretary of State Colin Powell has
begun a hastily arranged trip to heal bruised relations with allies in
Turkey and the European Union.
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