The threat raised apprehensions however that the embattled regime might resort to weapons of mass destruction.
Advancing US troops came across circumstantial evidence that such weapons existed, including chemical warfare training manuals, gas masks and atropine, a nerve gas antidote. The troops also reported finding vials of unidentified liquid and white powder at two sites near the town of Latifiya, south of Baghdad. Initial analysis suggested that the powder was an explosive.
US infantry units solidified their hold on the international airport, about 20 kilometres west of Baghdad, while marines and airborne troops moved north and east of the city. But the Iraqi information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, insisted that it was the American force, not the Iraqi capital, that was surrounded.
”We will commit a non-conventional act on them, not necessarily military,” the minister said. ”We will do something that will be a great example for these mercenaries.”
Asked if the government had plans to use weapons of mass destruction, he said: ”No, not at all. But we will conduct a kind of martyrdom operation.”
The phrase ”martyrdom operation” is usually used to refer to suicide attacks, of which there have been two since the war began – one in the north, and the other on Thursday night near Haditha, north-west of Baghdad. A car exploded at a special forces checkpoint, killing three soldiers, the driver and a pregnant woman who attempted to escape from the car.
US marines claimed yesterday to have routed the Nida armoured division of the Republican Guard, about 65 kilometres south-east of Baghdad, a day after overrunning the Baghdad infantry division.
The US central command also said helicopter troops from the 101st Airborne Division had landed north of the capital, while the road between Baghdad and President Saddam’s ethnic power base in Tikrit, about 160 kilometres to the north-west, was in the hands of coalition special forces, who are inspecting cars for fleeing members of the Ba’ath party.
The advance units of the 3rd Infantry Division who seized Baghdad’s airport on Thursday fought off a string of counter-attacks, according to journalists travelling with them, while inspecting a complex beneath the runways. Some of the Iraqi soldiers involved in the fighting were thought to be members of the Special Republican Guard, the first time the elite force has been in action.
US military officials said yesterday that once Iraqi forces were driven back from the periphery of the airport, it would serve as an important forward base, allowing reinforcements and humanitarian supplies to be flown in. –Guardian Unlimited Â