- NEAR NAJAF/BAGHDAD (Reuters)
- U.S. troops pushed toward Baghdad on Sunday but ran into stubborn resistance
in several places as bombs and missiles pummeled the capital for a fourth
day.
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- Iraq said 77 civilians were killed in fighting at its
second city of Basra in the far south, mostly victims of cluster bombs,
and reported deadly air raids on Tikrit, President Saddam Hussein's home
town.
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- It said it would soon show captured soldiers on television.
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- After winning a fierce battle, an armored U.S. column
pushed on toward the central city of Najaf and came within 110 miles of
the Iraqi capital, a Reuters reporter said.
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- A British defense source said the ground war for Baghdad
should begin in as soon as 36 hours, and expressed determination that troops
would not get bogged down on the way.
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- "We're looking toward Monday night, Tuesday for
the ground offensive on Baghdad," the source told Reuters. A U.S.
general said things were going faster than planned.
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- But correspondents with U.S. and British units in Iraq
reported widespread clashes -- near Umm Qasr, on Iraq's narrow south coast,
Najaf, a holy city for Iraq's Shi'ite majority, and Nassiriya where the
Euphrates river was crossed.
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- "There's a serious firefight going on here,"
Reuters' Adrian Croft said from Umm Qasr, a day after U.S. officials said
they had won control of the strategic port.
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- "The impression I get from talking to several officers
is that they are surprised at the level of resistance and that more Iraqis
haven't surrendered," said Reuters correspondent Luke Baker, 12 miles
south of Najaf with units of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division.
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- Britain said a U.S. missile brought down one its planes,
in the first repeat of the "friendly fire" accidents that plagued
the 1991 Gulf War.
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- Iraq said it was looking forward to the invaders' arrival
in the capital of five million people.
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- "We wish that they would come to Baghdad so we can
teach this evil administration, and those who work with it, a lesson,"
said Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, who called Iraq's defense excellent
and its situation comfortable.
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- Iraqi television showed Saddam, whom U.S. forces tried
to kill in an air attack that began the war on Thursday, meeting military
leaders he earlier thanked for staunch resistance.
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- His air force, devastated in the Gulf War and kept in
check by Western planes ever since, was nowhere to be seen, but Iraq said
ground forces shot down five planes and two helicopters.
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- U.S. officials said no aircraft were reported missing
-- and that Iraq had no prisoners to show.
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- BATTLES IN CENTRAL IRAQ
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- The ruling Baath party said U.S. forces fled after a
desert clash near Najaf, in which the local party leader was killed.
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- But U.S. military sources there said that around 70 Iraqis
were killed in a battle south of the city overnight, with pockets of defenders
still fighting elsewhere.
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- Najaf is a shrine city revered by Shi'ite Muslims, and
one of several cities that rose against Saddam, a Sunni, in 1991.
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- Reporter Sean Maguire also said fighting had blocked
the U.S. advance near Nassiriya, between Najaf and Kuwait, from where the
land invasion was launched on Thursday night.
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- "We're blocked. We can't go ahead because of security
concerns because of this resistance," he said from his position about
20 miles southeast of the city.
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- U.S. forces expect resistance to stiffen closer to Baghdad.
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- Fresh air raids shook the city on Sunday, by day as well
as night, shattering the nerves of residents for a fourth day, targeting
government buildings and symbols of Saddam's power.
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- Reuters correspondent Khaled Oweis reported five new
explosions some distance from the city center.
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- Iraqi forces set oil-filled trenches ablaze around the
capital in an apparent bid to create a smokescreen, but it is likely to
be little defense against satellite-guided weapons.
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- HOME TOWN ATTACKED
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- Saddam's small home town and stronghold of Tikrit north
of Baghdad was bombed heavily, killing four people, Iraqi satellite television
said.
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- Officials have also reported three deaths from raids
in the capital, with about 250 wounded. Red Cross workers saw about 200
people described as war-wounded in Baghdad hospitals.
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- U.S. and British tank units advanced on Basra, where
Iraqi forces fought back to keep them out of the city, Reuters correspondents
said, quoting soldiers in the area.
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- "Repeated explosions can be heard in the area,"
Matthew Green said from the outskirts.
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- The battle appeared bloody. An Iraqi minister said 77
civilians had been killed there and 366 wounded.
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- Qatar-based al-Jazeera television showed grisly footage
of dead and wounded. One scene beamed across the Arab world showed a child
with the back of its head blown off.
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- Some 280,000 U.S. and British troops have been assembled
for the war, of which an unknown number are inside the country.
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- They have confirmed only two deaths in battle -- both
U.S. marines -- but 19 deaths in two helicopter crashes.
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- At a rear base in Kuwait, another U.S. soldier was killed
and 12 wounded when grenades were thrown into a command tent. The military
said one of its own men was held as a suspect.
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- In Umm Qasr, tanks and British Harrier jets attacked
targets where some 120 Republican Guards were reported dug in.
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- "It made sense," said a U.S. commander on the
spot. "Rather than send men in there, we're just going to destroy
it."
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- The battle was shown live on television networks.
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- Technological advances allow unprecedented real-time
cover although both sides place some restrictions on journalists.
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- Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said
defenders were still fighting U.S. forces around Nassiriya and had destroyed
16 U.S. tanks and armored vehicles.
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- "We have seven million army and volunteers who are
spread in appropriate positions everywhere to shock and awe the enemy,"
he said, mocking the "shock and awe" name the U.S. has given
the Anglo-American bombing campaign.
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- The resistance looks set to delay, but not ultimately
to prevent, the advance on Baghdad.
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- Advance columns have now covered about two thirds of
the 300 miles to the city in just two days.
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- Near Nassiriya, U.S. troops managed to take control of
bridgeheads and crossed the Euphrates river from the western desert to
the fertile and more populous Mesopotamian plain.
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- Mosul, in north Iraq where a planned second invasion
front has been thwarted by Turkey's reluctance to act as a conduit, came
under renewed air attack in the middle of the day, said Reuters reporter
Jon Hemming from nearby Kurd-held territory.
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- Iraqi Kurds said U.S. missiles struck at an Islamist
group accused by Washington of links to al Qaeda for a second day.
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