- Tony Blair's War Cabinet was told by intelligence chiefs
yesterday that Saddam Hussein survived last week's missile attack on his
bunker in Baghdad, but sustained serious injury.
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- The Telegraph has learned that ministers were told at
a special 40-minute briefing that the Iraqi leader had been so badly wounded
he needed a blood transfusion.
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- His son, Uday, is also thought to have been injured and
may even have been killed. Some American officials also claimed yesterday
that another of Saddam's relatives, Ali Hassan al-Majid - known as "Chemical
Ali" for his involvement in the infamous Halabja chemical weapons
attacks - had been killed.
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- A British official said: "Saddam Hussein was badly
injured. He was so badly injured he needed a blood transfusion. Unfortunately,
he was not critically injured. We think he is still alive. We also think
his son Uday was killed or badly injured."
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- Last night, Iraqi state television broadcast footage
of Saddam purporting to meet officials. He apparently praised his troops
and said he was "satisfied" with their efforts against the coalition,
but there was no indication of when it had been filmed.
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- The news of Saddam's injuries emerged as Iraq's second
largest city, Basra, was in the grip of coalition forces last night after
most of its defending garrison fled in the teeth of British and American
attack. The strategically important southern port city was encircled, with
helicopter gunships joining the battle on the outskirts.
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- The fall of Basra will free more forces to join the rapid
push north towards Baghdad.
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- Last night the 20,000-strong 3rd US Infantry (mechanised)
Division was understood to have crossed the Euphrates and to be only 100
miles from the Iraqi capital.
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- They clashed with Iraqis in the desert around the town
of Najaf, and Iraqi television said that the leader of Saddam's Baath party
there had been killed. Najaf is the closest point to Baghdad that ground
fighting has been reported since hostilities began.
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- Baghdad and other cities were hit by a second night of
bombing, and large parts of the capital were plunged into darkness. In
an attempt to thwart allied aircraft dropping laser-guided bombs, Iraqi
troops set fire to dozens of oil-filled trenches around Baghdad.
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- As coalition forces advanced rapidly towards the city,
there were warnings yesterday that an increasingly desperate Saddam may
soon unleash his chemical and biological weapons against them. Mr Blair
warned the Cabinet that Saddam's forces might use their banned weapons
in the final stages of the war. British intelligence officers regard the
crossing of the Euphrates as a possible trigger for such an order.
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- Major Patrick Trueman, a military intelligence officer,
said: "It would have been madness for Iraq to use chemicals near the
border because that would have turned world opinion against them immediately.
But the Euphrates is a key decision point for Saddam. Once it is crossed
the route to Baghdad is fairly clear.
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- "We have always feared that this may be the time
when he decides that he has nothing to lose and uses chemical weapons to
inflict as much damage as possible upon us."
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- The fall of Basra was also a significant milestone. Most
of the Iraqi forces based there fled as the allies advanced. Those that
chose to fight were destroyed by US marines, supported by British Desert
Rats, in a fierce tank battle to the west of the city. Reports spoke of
the road to Basra being littered with Iraqi bodies.
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- Basra, which has a population of 1.6 million people,
mostly Shi'ite Muslims opposed to Saddam, is about 300 miles from Baghdad.
Vast oilfields surround it. Thousands more Iraqi soldiers surrended and
were taken prisoner as the war entered its fourth day.
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- According to Iraqi exiles in Jordan, the US is using
Nazar Khazraji, a former Iraqi army chief of staff who defected in 1996,
to help secure the defection of senior army officers. Gen Khazrajiis said
to be playing a key role in contacting officers and persuading them to
turn against Saddam.
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- There were some setbacks for the Allies, however. Four
soldiers of the US 3rd (mechanised) Infantry Division were killed in an
ambush in central Iraq, shortly after elements of the unit secured the
town of Nassiriya, next to the Euphrates. It is understood they were part
of the division's reconnaissance unit travelling in lightly armoured Humvee
vehicles towards Baghdad when they were hit by rocket-propelled grenades.
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- Six British servicemen were killed in a mid-air collision
between two Royal Navy helicopters in the Gulf, pushing the number of UK
deaths to 14 following another aircraft accident on Friday.
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- It brought the total coalition death toll to 25.
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- In a separate development, there was increasing concern
for three members of an ITN team, led by the British reporter Terry Lloyd,
who went missing on the road to Basra. An Australian cameraman, Paul Moran,
39, was killed in a car bomb in northern Iraq.
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- In another setback, the Pentagon finally gave up hope
of persuading Turkey to allow troops through to open a separate front in
northern Iraq. Forty supply ships waiting for weeks in the Mediterranean
will now be sent through the Suez Canal to the Gulf.
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- There was also confusion over whether Turkish commandos
had moved into northern Iraq. It was reported that 1,500 crossed the border
to control a possible influx of refugees but Turkey denied any such operation.
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- Despite this, General Tommy Franks, the US commander
of the coalition forces, said that the war was going well, with coalition
forces having covered the distance of the longest manoeuvre of the 1991
Gulf War in a quarter of the time.
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- He said at his headquarters in Qatar : "This will
be a campaign unlike any other in history. It will be characterised by
shock, by surprise, by flexibility, by the employment of precise munitions
on a scale never before seen, and by the application of overwhelming force.
The outcome is in no doubt.
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- "There may be difficult days ahead but the forces
in the field will achieve the objectives that have been set out. "
- In his weekly radio address, however, President George
W. Bush warned "A campaign on harsh terrain in a vast country could
be longer and more difficult than some have predicted."
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- Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, the Chief of the Defence Staff,
said that the entire Iraqi oil and gas fields were in the control of coalition
forces but had been booby-trapped by the Iraqis.
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