Bombs batter Baghdad

SOUTHERN IRAQ: The United States and Britain unleashed massive aerial assaults on targets in Baghdad and beyond yesterday in a major escalation of the war to drive Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from power. American and British troops seized Iraq’s only port city after crushing Iraqi resistance.

Explosions reverberated in downtown Baghdad, sending great columns of smoke into the night sky as cruise missiles found their targets and warplanes dropped bombs over the capital city. Some two hours later, the distinct sound of aircraft could be heard over Baghdad for the first time since the start of the US-led attack on Iraq. A huge fire raged to the south of the city, and the presidential compound was struck anew by missiles after a lull in the heaviest attack on Baghdad since the conflict began. “We’re making progress” toward the goal of liberating Iraq, US President George W Bush said in Washington, and halfway around the world, large numbers of Iraqis surrendered rather than resist.

Coalition forces also advanced on southern Iraqi oilfields, hoping to prevent any sabotage by retreating troops already accused of setting some wells ablaze. And in the western part of the country, coalition troops seized two airfield complexes believed to house Scud missiles capable of reaching Israel. Military officials reported two American combat deaths. One Marine was killed in a firefight to secure an oil pumping station in southern Iraq. A second Marine died in the battle for Umm Qasr, the port city seized by coalition forces.

US intelligence officials, claiming disarray among the Iraqi military, said there was no evidence that Saddam — or another senior official — was in overall command of the country’s security or military operations. Anti-war sentiment flared in the United States and around the world. Police clashed with thousands of anti-war demonstrators trying to storm the US Embassy in Yemen, leaving a policeman and a protester dead amid a barrage of bullets, rocks, water cannons and tear gas canisters. In the United States, protesters moved into the financial district in downtown San Francisco and 70 people dropped to the ground on damp grass outside a federal courthouse in Baltimore.

In Iraq, the government-run news agency said Saddam had decreed that any Iraqi who kills an enemy soldier would get a reward equivalent to $14,000. The reward for capturing an enemy solider was put at $28,000. Iraqi defense minister, Lt Gen Sultan Hashim Ahmed, told reporters in Baghdad that coalition forces also were targetting the southern cities of Basra and Nassiriyah, but that Iraqi forces had “dealt with” coalition forces in the desert near Jordan. Aid agencies yesterday reported a steady stream of people, mainly migrant workers, leaving Iraq but said there were no immediate signs of a mass outflow of refugees. Some Iraqis in Jordan talked of returning to Iraq to fight.

“Iraqis will stand on our own land. God willing, we will defeat them if I have the chance. I’ll pick up a gun and fight for my country,” said Mohammed Hamza, an Iraqi truck driver headed home. Iraqi taxi driver Riad Karim said: “We are not afraid. Our families are there. What can we do here.” The capture of Umm Qasr also produced a minor controversy. American troops who raised the US flag over the city were quickly ordered to take it down, in compliance with Bush’s oft-repeated statement that Americans are fighting in Iraq as liberators, not conquerers.