The British military today claimed that a group of Iraqi civilians trying to flee the southern city of Basra were fired upon by Iraqi mortars that were being shot in the vicinity of British forces.
One young woman was seriously wounded and several other people received minor injuries, according to Captain Robert Sandford of the 7th Armoured Brigade.
He said up to nine mortars landed near the group as they were waiting to cross a bridge west of Basra. British tanks are positioned near the bridge and it is difficult to say what was the target of the attack, which took place at around 0700 GMT (10am local time).
Earlier today, Baghdad suffered one of its heaviest nights of bombing. US warplanes dropped two huge ”bunker busting” bombs on the city. The US military claimed the bombs had hit Iraqi command and communication centres.
The bombing on Baghdad resumed shortly before 0900 GMT (12pm local time) when one explosion was heard in the city’s centre and several others in the outskirts, where many of the regime’s elite troops are believed to be stationed.
Although Iraqi officials admitted the capital would probably be encircled within five to 10 days, they remained defiant. ”The enemy must come inside Baghdad, and that will be its grave,” the Iraqi defence minister, General Sultan Hashim Ahmed, said.
However, the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, suggested that rather than invading Baghdad at the earliest opportunity and risking bloody urban warfare, US forces might lay siege to the capital.
There would be no ceasefire and nothing short of total victory in Iraq would be accepted, Rumsfeld added.
Blair: Iraq campaign will take time
Returning home after yesterday’s meeting with the US president, George Bush, the prime minister, Tony Blair, said it would take time to ”prise the grip of Saddam [Hussein] off the country, when it’s been there for over 20 years”.
He spoke today of ”tough and difficult” moments in the war on Iraq but claimed coalition forces had made significant progress.
Speaking on the ninth day of the war, Blair said that the future of Iraq should be governed by Iraqis and not the Americans or the British.
He said that Britain, the US and Spain had agreed that ”not just the humanitarian element but also the civil administration in Iraq [post-conflict] should be governed by UN resolution”.
Blair also repeated his assertion that there were ”real” links between terrorist groups and rogue states in possession of weapons of mass destruction. He suggested that the British public had still not ”opened its eyes” to the new threat to its safety in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the US.
UN resolution on oil-for-food ‘within 24 hours’
The UN security council was expected to vote within the next 24 hours to revive the oil-for-food programme upon which many Iraqis depend.
Blair, speaking after meeting the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, in New York last night, said that he believed a security council resolution on the programme could be secured within the next day.
This might help patch up differences over the war within the international community, he suggested.
Blair said: ”That will be the UN door open again. I think that will make a big difference to attitudes all round.”
He added that the Iraqi president had made the majority of his people – 60% – dependent on food aid, which gave him control over who received what.
Australian officials said they were confident the British RFA ship Sir Galahad would dock at Umm Qasr within hours, after aid for Iraq was delayed again after more mines were discovered in the port.
Stealth bomber hits communications tower
A US B-2 stealth bomber dropped two 4 700lb satellite-guided ”bunker busting” bombs on a major communications tower on the Tigris river in central Baghdad, US military officials said.
They said the strike was intended to hamper communications between President Saddam and his military. Meanwhile, air assaults targeted one of President Saddam’s presidential compounds in the heart of the capital.
Meanwhile sandstorms abated and the coalition’s air forces, which have unchecked air superiority, reported flying 1 500 missions during the day.
120 000 more US troops head for Iraq
After eight days of fighting, Pentagon officials said almost 90 000 US troops were in Iraq, and that an additional 100 000 to 120 000 were on the way.
All were part of a military blueprint made up long ago, US officials said, sensitive to criticism that commanders had underestimated the need for troops to quell stronger than expected resistance or protect long supply lines.
Iraqis accused US and British forces of targeting civilians. They, in turn, accused the regime of seizing Iraqi children to force their fathers into battle.
Iraqi officials said about 350 civilians had been killed so far, and more than 3,500 others injured.
Iraq’s information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, insisted today that chemical protection suits found by coalition forces, and cited as evidence that Iraq has chemical weapons, were just ”standard equipment” for Iraqi soldiers.
He said they were in no way proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that they were normal kit for soldiers around the world. – Guardian Unlimited Â