US-led forces closed in on Baghdad yesterday, with a new front opened in the north and reinforcements sent to the south as the war to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein entered its second week.
But US troops suffered a setback when dozens of US Marines were wounded in friendly fire during an Iraqi attack near the southern town of Nasiriyah, US officers at the scene said.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Units of the Marines' First Division pushed north toward Baghdad on a major road near the city of Diwaniya, some 240km from the capital, after two days of heavy fighting with Iraqi fighters.
Another marine unit from the east broke free of Iraqi resistance between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and moved to within 230km of the capital.
The progress toward Baghdad of US-led forces, who launched an offensive last week to disarm Iraq and topple Saddam's government, became easier as blinding sandstorms that had slowed their movements for two days cleared up.
The 101st Airborne Division's fleet of 270 attack helicopters prepared for combat missions after being grounded by the swirling dust, officers said, with clear skies forecast for the next two days.
The coalition opened a new front in northern Iraq when up to 1,000 elite troops from the US Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade parachuted into the Kurdish-held zone late Wednesday, circumventing Turkey's refusal to allow US troops to cross its soil.
"It's the first sizeable force in northern Iraq," a US defense official said.
Early yesterday, US transport planes landed in the eastern part of the Kurdish region, witnesses said, with US troops seen being deployed near frontlines with the Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk.
Some 12,000 troops from the US Army's 4th Infantry Division, initially due to enter Iraq through Turkey, left their Texas base yesterday for the Gulf, where ships carrying their tanks and armored vehicles were diverted last week.
The fresh arrivals will back up the offensive, which has put the 3rd Infantry Division on Baghdad's doorstep but exposed its supply lines to guerrilla attacks.
As the drive to Baghdad continued, US forces suffered a disappointing blow when dozens of marines were wounded in a friendly fire incident during a nighttime Iraqi attack near Nasiriyah, a key crossing point over the Euphrates River.
Shell and mortar fire apparently hit the marine command post headquarters near Nasiriyah, leaving 37 wounded, with three in critical condition, officers told a correspondent traveling with the troops.
"It was friendly fire," said one US captain, who did not want to be named.
It was not immediately clear how many of the marines had been hurt by friendly fire and how many had been wounded by Iraqi fire.
The headquarters compound returned fire, officers said, but casualty reports from the other side were not immediately available. A US Central Command spokesman in Qatar said the incident was under investigation.
The clash near Nasiriyah, which destroyed at least six military vehicles, came as coalition war planes unleashed a fresh wave of punishing air strikes on Baghdad overnight and during the day yesterday.
Iraqi Health Minister Umid Medhat Mubarak said a total of 36 civilians had been killed in Wednesday's raids, and that 350 people -- mostly women, children and the elderly -- had been killed since the start of the war.
At least 3,600 others have been injured since US-led forces launched their campaign against Saddam a week ago, the minister told reporters.
In central Iraq, US and British forces heading for Baghdad braced for a tough battle in the holy Shiite city of Najaf, 150km south of the capital, after meeting stiff resistance from Iraqi fighters.
Major John Altman, intelligence officer of the 3rd Infantry Division's First Brigade, said the Iraqis were trying to reinforce Najaf with thousands of crack Republican Guard troops from Karbala, 70km north.
US forces said Wednesday they had killed about 1,000 Iraqis in three days of intense clashes in and around Najaf.
US General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said US forces had attacked a column of Iraqi vehicles heading from Baghdad to Karbala to confront US forces. Media reports put the number of vehicles at up to 1,000.
US and UK defense officials have said the likelihood of Iraqi troops using chemical weapons would increase as US-led troops close in on Baghdad, but US and British forces have not yet uncovered any of the weapons of mass destruction they accuse Saddam of harboring.
In the south, British forces were trying to take control of the southern city of Basra after a column of Iraqi tanks made a surprise breakout of the besieged port late Wednesday and pushed on toward British positions.
US-led forces said yesterday they had destroyed a number of Iraqi tanks, but the commander of British forces in the Gulf, Air Marshal Brian Burridge, said the column's movement did not appear to be part of a coordinated counter-attack by Iraqi troops.
Basra, the country's second city, is a key gateway for humanitarian aid, but the fighting has disrupted efforts to deliver much-needed supplies.
Further south, the discovery of mines in the deep-water port of Umm Qasr delayed the first shipment of British aid into Iraq, a British officer said.
On the diplomatic front, most speakers at a public session of the UN Security Council late Wednesday condemned the US-led war on Iraq, warning it could spark a widescale humanitarian disaster.
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