NEAR BAGHDAD, Iraq: US army troops pushed through to the southern outskirts of Baghdad last night, encountering four hours of running skirmishes with determined Iraqi fighters. 

Americans were pounding Baghdad’s international airport and unconfirmed reports said Iraqis were abandoning the airport. US forces with the 3rd Infantry Division attacked Saddam International Airport on the southwestern edge of the city late. Tracer rounds raced through the night sky and artillery shells exploded in the air. Reporters embedded with the division quoted field sources as saying the Iraqis were abandoning the airport.

Meanwhile, US commandos raided a presidential palace in a resort area northwest of the city, and the capital was plunged into darkness. At least one US soldier was killed by friendly fire in the hours-long skirmish on Baghdad’s outskirts. Three were wounded by Iraqi fire, and three soldiers collapsed from heat exhaustion as temperatures rose about 32 degrees C (90 degrees F) outdoors and over 38 degrees C (100 degrees F) inside the tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. Southeast of Baghdad, Marine units advanced along the Tigris River. The two rivers run parallel to each other for much of their northwest-to-southeast flow through Iraq, with the Tigris flowing directly through the city proper.

Some Marines from the 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment went to a higher state of alert for chemical weapons, with troops almost fully clad in chemical protection suits. Outside the southeastern city of Basra, British troops advanced across a crucial waterway, setting up camp within city’s limits for the first time, British pool reports said. Early Thursday, a group of commandos raided the Thar Thar presidential palace, 55 miles northwest of Baghdad. US Brig Gen Vincent Brooks, in a briefing at US Central Command, said the commandos landed by helicopter in the palace compound after suppressing anti-aircraft fire. They found no leaders in residence, but came away with documents that will be reviewed by intelligence officers, Brooks said.

US officials said only one palace was raided; A Central Command spokesman initially indicated soldiers had entered a palace near the Baghdad airport. “We don’t think that the fighting is over yet,” Brooks said. “There are still options that are open to the regime, including weapons of mass destruction. We take that very seriously.” Iraqi authorities vowed to make a stand, raising the possibility that some units had been pulled into Baghdad for urban warfare rather than risk a head-on clash outside the city. “God willing, we will teach the enemy lessons on the battlefield that it will not forget,” said an Republican Guard commander identified by the Arab-language satellite television Al-Jazeera as commander of the Republican Guard’s Baghdad Division. The officer, whose name was not given, said 17 of his men were killed in the recent combat, but denied US claims that the division had been destroyed.

Thousands of 3rd Infantry Division vehicles moved across the Euphrates River bridge at Musayyib, 55 kilometers (35 miles) due south of Baghdad, passing scores of blown up Iraqi vehicles and dozens of dead bodies. The dead were in uniform — though it was unclear whether they were Republican Guard or regular army units. Dozens of Iraqi soldiers have surrendered. Marine units swept through the Tigris River town of Zubaydiyah, southeast of Baghdad, searching for Iraqi army units, but only finding abandoned bunkers and fighting holes.

THE kidnappers who have 13-year-old Gewan Geelal hostage telephoned his family yesterday demanding $3 million for his safe release. However, up to late yesterday police sources said the ransom had not been paid nor were the teen’s whereabouts known.

Geelal was abducted on Wednesday morning in Aranjuez while being transported to school. His father, Premnath Geelal, 44, who operates the family business — Geelal’s Dry Goods store — on the El Socorro Road, San Juan was himself kidnapped on March 25, last year. Yesterday, relatives refused to speak to the media saying only that Gewan suffers from asthma which needs constant attention.  When Newsday visited the house yesterday, smoke from religious incense wafted in the air near a group of jhandis (flags),  remnants of a prayer ceremony held recently. Members of the Anti-Kidnapping Squad (AKS) spent most of yesterday working on several “strong leads”. However sources said the investigations were at a “delicate stage” and as such, information was being withheld from the media.

DISSATISFIED with several government initiated anti-crime plans and concerned over the the spate of kidnappings in his constituency, San Juan/Barataria MP Dr Fuad Khan, yesterday launched a new constituency-based civilian Anti-Kidnapping Squad which he called “Guardian Angels”.

Dr Khan spoke to the media yesterday at his constituency office at the Priority Bus Route Mall in the Croisee. He said the group, which would be formally launched next Monday, comprises mainly of young people living in his constituency, between 15 and 18, who will carry out anti-kidnapping and anti-crime manoeuvres including surveillance work. Dr Khan called on all Members of Parliament to launch similar groups in their constituencies to monitor strange persons or activities and to report them to the police. “I am calling on the Prime Minister to support this drive and to lend whatever assistance he can to see that it is a success,” Dr Khan said. He told the media he had written a formal letter to Commissioner of Police Hilton Guy yesterday requesting police officers to train Guardian Angel (GA) members in combat, use of firearms and surveillance techniques.

Dr Khan said on Monday, 15 GA members hit the streets and began investigations into the kidnapping of 13-year-old schoolboy Gewan Geelal, the son of millionaire San Juan businessman Premnath Geelal. He did not say what stage those investigations had reached. Dr Khan said GA was not a vigilante group and would operate within the tenets of the law. He said persons wishing to become members first had to get approval from police. Dr Khan said the GA would operate at ground level and report all their findings to the relevant police authorities. He also said the Anti-Kidnapping Squad had a small police staff and could not handle all of the kidnapping incidents effectively. “I have always said that legislation alone does not stop crime, but implementation of common law does,” he said.

Dr Khan said he was hoping to get the support of the police in this venture. Within the past three weeks, three young children were kidnapped in separate incidents in San Juan, prompting fear and outrage especially among the business community in San Juan. Khan said the GA programme, which is structured under a similar one set up  in New York some years ago, has received the blessings of the San Juan Businessmen Association, Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday and “some” members of the Police Service. Efforts to reach Commissioner of Police Hilton Guy for a reaction proved futile. However his Deputy, Trevor Paul, said he was not aware of either the formation of the group, nor the letter sent to the CoP by Dr Khan, requesting training assistance. I will have to examine the contents of this letter before I make any comment,” DCP Paul said. Dr Khan has also called on the business community to contribute monies which would go towards the acquiring of the necessary infrastructure to make the group more functional.

POLICE are working on the theory that Wednesday night’s fatal shooting of City Council worker Delene Long may be linked to the recent killings of pickpocket kingpin Neil “Big Neil” Lewis and Jamaat al Muslimeen member Mark Guerra. Long was reportedly the mother of Lewis’s son, Leon Ojoe.

Investigators said that while Long’s death appears to be robbery-related, they were not dismissing a theory that the shooting might have been a revenge killing planned to look like robbery.  Lewis of Laventille was gunned down in Port-of-Spain on the night of March 15. Guerra was shot to death at Wallerfield, Arima on March 23. Reports on Wednesday’s shooting are that around 9.10pm, Long, 45, of #26 Augustine Lane, Gonzales, was at her home where a birthday party was in progress for one of her sons, O’Neil Long. There were approximately 20 people present.

Police said the mixed crowd of young people heard a gunshot outside Long’s home, after which two armed men entered the woman’s house. Everyone was ordered to lie on the floor and Ojoe was robbed of a gold chain and watch, together valued $1,600. A bottle of Scotch whisky was also taken. As the men were about to leave the house, police said Long enquired: “Is a birthday party all yuh going to rob?”  One of the armed men made an about turn and shot Long on the left side of her head.

The woman was rushed to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival. A post mortem performed yesterday by pathologist Dr Hughvon DesVignes revealed she died from gunshot injury to the head. After the shooting a report was made and a party of officers including Insps Manechand Ramnarine and Chaitoo, Sgts Wayne Dick and Randolph Boyce and Cpls Learie Barrington and Springer visited the scene and conducted investigations. Senior officers said yesterday that they were concerned as to why Ojoe was the only one robbed at the party. None of Long’s children wanted to speak when the media visited their home yesterday. However, one male resident told Newsday that the same two men are believed to have been behind robberies which had occurred earlier in the night.

Inspite of information received, police still believe that Long’s killing is in some way connected to the deaths of Lewis and Guerra. No arrests had been made up to late evening and Cpl Barrington of the Belmont Criminal Investigations Department (CID) is continuing investigations.

A four-year-old child, Aaron Aki, escaped being burnt  to death  Wednesday night, when the small wooden house in which he had been left alone, was burnt completely to the ground. According to reports, the child was left asleep on a bed shortly after 7pm, with two lighted candles and a kerosene lamp inside the building at Fanny Village, Pt Fortin.

Investigators reported that the child’s father was not at home at the time and his mother, Avior Miller, had gone next door to a friend’s home. Shortly after she left, the building became engulfed in flames, trapping Aaron inside. The flames caught the attention of 26-year-old villager, Bobby Ghany, who was at his home located approximately 15 feet away. Ghany, a construction worker, recalled yesterday that he heard his father-in-law screaming: “Fire, fire” and he rushed outside to see his neighbour’s home on fire. He said he heard the child screaming inside, and he rushed in. “I ran inside and picked him up,” Ghany told Newsday. He said when he got into the building he found the child surrounded by smoke and fire. “He was just standing in the hall crying,” Ghany recalled. The young man, who is being hailed in the village as a hero, said he had no time to feel afraid when he ran inside the burning house because his main objective was to save the helpless child.

Aaron’s mother, he said, arrived moments after he saved the child who sustained only minor burns to the face, head and side.  He was treated and discharged from hospital. The mother told police yesterday Aaron was asleep on the bed when she left to visit a nearby neighbour. When she returned 15 minutes later, she said, she saw the house burning and her crying son safely in the arms of a neighbour. The small wooden house valued $8,000 was completely gutted. Investigators said the child was treated for superficial burns at the Point Fortin Hospital. When Newsday visited the area yesterday neighbours said Miller had gone to Point Fortin Borough Council, with her son, to ask for  assistance as all their clothes and valuables had been destroyed in the blaze. PC Richardson is continuing investigations.

A TEENAGED waitress was shot in the back and seriously wounded, during a failed robbery at a Caroni restaurant on Wednesday night. Eileen Jacob, 19, is warded in an unsatisfactory condition at Port-of-Spain General Hospital with a bullet reportedly still lodged in her back.

According to police reports, at around 8.30 pm Abigail Ali, 30, of Main Road, Kelly Village, Caroni, was conducting sales at her businessplace, Airlink Restaurant and Bar at Caroni South Bank Road, St Helena Village. Three men, two of whom were armed with pistols, entered the establishment and announced a robbery. One of the bandits attempted to open an iron gate to get behind the bar but Ali fought him. One of the bandits fired two shots at Ali, with one striking Jacob in the lower back, while the other shot struck a wall. As Jacob, who lives in Robert Trace, Warrenville, slumped to the floor screaming in pain, the bandits ran out of the restaurant and escaped in a white Nissan B13 Sentra.

A report was made to the Caroni police and officers led by Sgt Duncan including Ag Cpl Duncan and others went to the restaurant and began investigations. The bleeding, semi-conscious teen was taken to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital where she received emergency treatment and was warded. Up to late yesterday no arrests had been made and Ag Cpl Duncan is continuing investigations.

THE CARIBBEAN Epidemiology Centre (CAREC) has advised governments in the region to place advisory signs at airports for incoming travellers from countries which have detected cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

Cards will be issued to these travellers with a contact number where they can seek medical attention if they developed a high fever and cough. “The key is to have a high suspicion index and detect early,” Director of CAREC Dr James Hospedales said yesterday. CAREC has been advising regional governments about the measures which should be in place to respond to SARS, whose origin still eludes scientists. More than 2000 people have been affected in 16 countries. There have been 78 deaths.

Hospedales said CAREC will contact the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association because it had a role to play in successful containment of SARS to ensure the tourism industry is not adversely affected. Asked about the possibility of SARS reaching the Caribbean when numerous travellers visit for the West Indies versus Australia cricket series, Hospedales said there is no special risk as Australia has not had evidence of the spread of SARS. He said most of the cases in the 16 countries were “imported” and in four there was subsequent transmission.

CAREC has met with Ministry of Health Officials, and a meeting was planned yesterday with the Regional Health Authorities about “fine tuning” measures needed to respond. “The isolation measures are not high-tech, you need hand washing, a mask and an area to isolate the patient and restricted access.” Hospedales said a treatment protocol involving anti-viral drug Ribavarin and steroids is being used to treat the serious form of SARS. He could not say how equipped Caribbean countries were with Ribavarin.