US-led troops met dogged resistance yesterday from Iraqi fighters in this strategic southern port, as coalition forces pushed on toward the capital Baghdad in their bid to oust President Saddam Hussein.
Despite the far superior firepower of US and British forces, they have failed to secure control of Umm Qasr, Iraq's only deep-water port, since the launch of the offensive on Thursday, the first day of the war.
Tanks fired shells as machine gun fire resounded across the desert battlefield, with military sources explaining that Iraqi fighters had holed up in a residential section of town, with some wearing civilian garb to blend in.
"The situation is still dangerous," a US officer said, refusing to let a journalist move further forward.
`False hope'
While coalition forces vowed to suppress what one British sergeant called "pockets of resistance," officials in Baghdad vowed intensified Iraqi opposition to the US-led campaign to end Saddam's 24-year grip on power.
"We let them go for a walk in the desert, but all our towns will resist," Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told a press conference, cautioning US and British forces not to take false hope from their progress in the west.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri echoed those comments, saying he was optimistic about his country's chances to resist the US and British invasion and dismissing reports that key Iraqi officials had been killed or wounded.
Allied forces also battled to secure the town of Nasiriyah, a third of the way to Baghdad from the Kuwaiti border, with US forces using helicopters and artillery against stubborn Iraqi resistance.
US officials said Saturday they had taken control of the town but had chosen not to enter it to avoid nasty house-to-house combat.
Halfway to baghdad
Despite the ongoing clashes in the south, coalition forces pressed northward through the Iraqi desert toward Baghdad, with US military spokesmen saying they had crossed the Euphrates river and were nearly halfway to the capital.
US Army General Tommy Franks, who is directing the campaign from his high-tech command base in Qatar, said troops en route to Baghdad were bypassing the southern city of Basra in order not to "create a military confrontation."
Basra, the country's second city and main port, is a key objective for the US-led coalition, tasked by US President George W. Bush with toppling Saddam's government and disarming Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf told reporters yesterday that cluster bombs dropped by US and British war planes on Basra the day before had left 77 civilians dead and 366 others wounded.
The US Marines First Expeditionary Force kicked off a 72-hour drive north into Iraq yesterday, while 12 US vessels carrying portable bridges and other equipment traveled through the Suez Canal en route to the Gulf.
Coalition planes unleashed a fresh wave of air raids on Baghdad early yesterday -- the fourth day of fighting -- with most of them hitting suburban targets, after a night of massive explosions that temporarily cut power to the city.
But the early morning bombings lacked the intensity of raids unleashed on Baghdad on Friday night, which Iraqi authorities said left three dead and more than 200 wounded.
More US B-52 bombers left Fairford Royal Air Force base in western England at about 11:30 GMT (7:30pm in Taiwan) yesterday, BBC television reported.
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