US forces advancing towards Baghdad were today held up by fierce fighting in the city of Samawah, against 1 500 Iraqi paramilitaries guarding a bridge across the Euphrates river.
Tanks and Apache helicopters are being used to try to dislodge the enemy force, consisting of fighters from the Fedayeen – a group of Saddam’s Hussein’s fanatically loyal paramilitaries – and armed Ba’ath party loyalists from Baghdad.
US army officials near the city told Radio Free Europe (RFE) that they want to encourage Samawah residents to rise up against Saddam’s regime. But so far civilians appear wary of launching an uprising while there is still a large number of Fedayeen commandos in the city, which lies 150 miles south of Baghdad.
Earlier, RFE’s correspondent at Samawah reported mortar fire against US troops by the Iraqi paramilitaries, who are able to approach American positions undetected because of a fierce dust storm.
Overnight, when weather conditions were still clear, US howitzers launched a series of massive artillery barrages against Iraqi troop positions in and around the city.
Samawah is on the west side of the Euphrates, in a strategic transport corridor that US forces secured at the weekend and have been using to push combat troops and their logistical support toward Baghdad.
Iraq: 350 civilians killed so far
US-led forces continued their intense air bombardment of Baghdad today as Iraq accused the US and Britain of deliberate attacks on civilians.
Iraqi health minister Umeed Madhat Mubarak said that 350 civilians have died in air raids since the conflict began, including 14 killed in yesterday’s apparent stray missile strike on a crowded market.
”They are targeting the human beings in Iraq to decrease their morale,” he said in a news conference. ”They are not discriminating, differentiating.”
The US has denied that it intentionally targeted the Shaab suburb in the north of the capital, but the Pentagon left open the possibility that a missile or bomb had gone astray.
US troops open northern front
The US military today began airlifting troops, tanks and equipment into northern Iraq after about 1 000 paratroopers secured a key airfield in the country’s Kurdish-controlled territory.
Pentagon officials said the move marked the beginning of a northern front, aimed at diverting Iraq soldiers from attacking coalition forces advancing through southern Iraq.
US marine captain Stewart Upton said the troops, of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, dropped into the Harir airfield 45 miles north-east of the main Kurdish city of Arbil around midnight.
”They established airfield operations to support a robust flow of follow-on forces,” he said.
The US is sending 30 000 reinforcements to support troops struggling against stronger than expected Iraqi resistance.
The troops, equipped with 200 Abrams main battle tanks, will arrive in the Gulf within days to reinforce the 280 000-strong US-British force already committed to the campaign.
The move comes just days after military leaders insisted no reinforcements were needed to win the war.
However, American military planners now reportedly fear the war to topple the Iraqi regime is likely to last for months.
Civilians in ‘flight from Basra’
Scores of Iraqi civilians are reported to be fleeing Basra and heading towards British forces based outside the city.
The people, some of them families with children, carried few possessions as they walked down a main road away from Iraq’s second-biggest city, according to a report on Sky News. It was unclear if they were seeking to claim prisoner of war status.
The apparent evacuation came just after British troops today destroyed 14 Iraqi tanks outside the city, in what is believed to be the largest tank battle involving British forces since the second world war.
Military sources said British Challenger 2 tanks engaged the Iraqi tanks – thought to be Russian-built T55s – as they began moving south out of the city towards the Faw peninsula.
Heavy fighting ensued in which all the Iraqi tanks were destroyed by a similar squadron-strength number of tanks from the Royal Scots Dragoon guards. A military source said: ”It was 14-0.”
The clash follows a fierce overnight battle in which British and US artillery and warplanes destroyed an Iraqi column attempting to move out of Basra, according to British military officials.
British forces said they had taken Iraqi state television and radio off the air in the second city, cutting all communication with Baghdad.
British find ‘categorical’ evidence of chemical weapons
British forces have found evidence proving ”categorically” that Iraq is ready to use weapons of mass destruction against allied forces, defence secretary Geoff Hoon said today.
Hoon was speaking after soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment found about a hundred chemical weapons protection suits and respirators in an Iraqi command post.
Hoon also urged the public not to allow individual setbacks and delays to distract them from the overall picture of the campaign, which he said was unfolding successfully.
Aid convoy ‘hijacked’
The operation to distribute much needed aid in the Iraqi border town of Safwan was described as a ”disaster” today after the convoy was hijacked.
Dr Hilal Al-Sayer, vice-chairman of the Red Crescent organisation behind the relief package, said the consignment of food destined for farms north of the Iraqi border had instead been seized soon after leaving Kuwait by ”young and healthy” Iraqis.
”That aid didn’t get to the farms where the women and children are, our people lost control and young Iraqi men began emptying the trucks,” he told the BBC.
Earlier, it was reported that the first military aid shipment, carrying more than 200 tonnes of aid to Iraq, would be delayed by 24 hours.
The British ship Sir Galahad had been due to dock in the southern Iraqi port of Umm Qasr today to deliver emergency food aid to desperate Iraqis, but has been forced to wait after more mines were found in the approaches to the port.
The UN has already warned of a humanitarian crisis among Basra’s residents, who are being forced to drink water from puddles and rivers after the southern city’s main water processing plant was damaged during military action.
Bush meets Blair in Washington
The US president, George Bush, and British prime minister, Tony Blair, were today assessing the progress of the war in Iraq after a week of fierce combat, amid growing signs that the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, has dug in for a prolonged fight.
The US and British leaders, meeting at the Camp David presidential retreat, were also discussing plans to get humanitarian aid into Iraq and to rebuild the country after the war, as well as looking at how to repair now severely strained US-Europe relations.
Anger as dead British soldiers shown on TV
The Ministry of Defence today said that images of two dead soldiers shown on Arabic TV were ”probably” the British servicemen who have been missing since their Land Rover was ambushed near Basra on Sunday. The soldiers were thought to have been attached to 7 Armoured Brigade, the Desert Rats.
The MoD said it was ”shocked and appalled” about the release of the pictures shown on the Qatar-based al-Jazeera channel, describing it a ”flagrant and disgraceful breach of the Geneva convention”.
The TV footage also showed images of what Iraq claimed were two British PoWs. The MoD said it had no information on the identities of the men, shown looking dazed and disorientated. The Press Association reported that they were in fact Kenyan drivers from a supply column.
The number of British servicemen now confirmed dead is 22, with just four of those killed in military action. – Guardian Unlimited Â