- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi
and U.S.-led forces clashed in the desert near the holy city of Najaf,
just 100 miles south of Baghdad on Sunday, Iraqi television said.
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- The report said the leader of President Saddam Hussein's
Baath party in Najaf was killed in the clashes, the closest ground fighting
to the capital since U.S. and British forces launched a war against the
Iraqi regime on Thursday.
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- In the capital, fresh waves of explosions late on Saturday
and into Sunday pounded intelligence, military and presidential buildings,
sending fireballs billowing into the sky and briefly knocking out power
lines in parts of the city.
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- About a dozen big explosions then shook downtown Baghdad
and its outskirts at around 2:15 a.m. local time on Sunday.
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- "They're definitely raising the intensity now,"
said Reuters correspondent Khaled Yacoub Oweis in the capital. Just after
midnight local time, anti-aircraft fire and explosions were seen over Mosul,
240 miles north of Baghdad, which had been hit by air raids a day earlier
as the U.S. and Britain stepped up their war to overthrow Saddam.
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- "There was the sound of aircraft overhead and I
could see dim flashes from what seemed to be explosions on the ground,"
Reuters correspondent Sebastian Alison said from a vantage point at Kalak,
in Kurdish-controlled territory overlooking the city.
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- In the south, al-Jazeera television, quoting Iraqi medics,
said 50 people were killed when U.S. F-16 warplanes bombed near Basra.
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- Raw video footage, beamed across the Arab world by the
Qatar-based satellite channel, showed a child with half its head blown
off. It was unclear if it was a boy or a girl.
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- "It's a huge mass of civilians," one angry
woman told al-Jazeera, standing among the wounded. "It was a massacre."
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- The report could not be independently confirmed.
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- BATTLE ON BASRA OUTSKIRTS
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- A U.S. officer said earlier that Marines defeated Iraqi
forces in a battle on the outskirts of Basra on Saturday, taking many prisoners,
but it was not clear who controlled the city.
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- Asked whether U.S.-led forces had bombed Basra, a military
spokesman in Qatar said: "That's considered an ongoing operation and,
until it is over, we're not going to go out there one way or another on
that."
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- As Baghdad was pounded by more cruise missiles, Iraqi
TV said U.S.-led forces had fled after clashes near Najaf, home to the
shrine of Imam Ali, a figure revered by Shi'ite Muslims.
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- Spokesmen for U.S. and British forces in both Kuwait
and Qatar had no comment on the report. The U.S. military said earlier
it secured a bridge across the Euphrates river at Nassiriya, 235 miles
southeast of Baghdad. Najaf lies on the western banks of the Euphrates,
but much closer to the capital.
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- In Baghdad, the Iraqi government said three people were
killed and 207 civilians wounded in bombing raids late on Friday and into
Saturday.
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- Iraqi forces set oil-filled trenches ablaze around the
capital in an apparent bid to create a smokescreen to hinder air strikes
by U.S. and British forces.
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- Around dusk on Saturday, volleys of missiles slammed
into Saddam's main palace on the banks of the River Tigris, government
and military targets and other symbols of his rule.
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- "CHILDREN TREMBLED WITH FEAR"
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- Dazed parents said their children trembled with fear
at the onslaught on the sprawling city dotted with palm trees. Air raid
sirens wailed and ambulances sped through the city.
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- Shrapnel and glass littered the riverside Abu Nuwas Street,
across the Tigris from Saddam's presidential compound.
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- In the compound, which houses the headquarters of Qusay,
the younger son charged by Saddam with defending Baghdad, a building still
smoldered. A small villa belonging to Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan
was destroyed.
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- Two other buildings, the Palace of Peace and the Palace
of Flowers, were struck in Saturday's raids and fire engines were seen
at the gates of the Jumhouriya (Republic) Presidential Palace, next to
broken water pipes and other debris.
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