"We are aggressively patrolling, we're moving into the city now," said Group Captain Al Lockwood, spokesman for British forces.
On Saturday, coalition aircraft struck the Basra home of Ali Hassan al-Majid, the Iraqi general known as "Chemical Ali" for ordering a poison gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds in 1988. Allied officials said the general -- Saddam's cousin -- was believed to be home at the time, but it was not known whether he was killed or wounded.
On yesterday, coalition forces positively identified the body of the general's bodyguard, Wilkinson said. "They're still sifting through the rubble down there to see if Chemical Ali was dead," he said.
Explosions jolted Baghdad early yesterday after a relatively quiet night in which the usual barrages of anti-aircraft fire were not heard.
Capitalizing on their dominance of the skies, US commanders began deploying planes over Baghdad 24 hours a day, ready to direct strike aircraft to ground targets.
Iraqi authorities took Baghdad-based journalists to the city's southern outskirts yesterday to show them a US tank destroyed in the recent fighting. A commander said four more tanks also were destroyed but had been towed away to clear the road.
Along the Tigris River, 32km southeast of Baghdad, Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines overran the headquarters of the Republican Guard's Second Corps, seized one of Saddam's numerous palaces and destroyed what US intelligence reports depicted as a terrorist training camp.
The nighttime attack was mounted in the town of Salman Pak, which military officials said contained a suspected weapons of mass destruction site dating back to 1991.
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