Baghdad came under fresh bombardment yesterday as US-led forces dug in and regrouped south of the capital and Washington prepared to throw a further 120,000 men into battle against President Saddam Hussein.
In Baghdad, witnesses said eight Iraqis were killed and 33 hurt when two missiles hit a residential area in the city centre. Wednesday, 14 people died in a missile strike.
On the ninth day of war, US-led forces maintained pressure against the regime, pounding the capital and targets to the south in preparation for a final push on the city.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Seven Iraqi civilians were killed and 92 wounded in overnight air strikes in Baghdad, Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf said.
US forces meanwhile shored up the northern front, airlifting dozens of transport vehicles into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.
Troops were seen boarding trucks in early morning amid reports of the first major movement in the region as Iraqi Kurd rebels advanced to 20km of the northern oil capital Kirkuk.
But the top US army ground commander in Iraq said tougher-than-expected Iraqi forces had stalled the US drive from the Kuwaiti border in the south toward Baghdad. Other US officials said the assault on Baghdad could be delayed until air strikes soften up crack Republican Guard units defending the capital.
Stock markets meanwhile dragged lower while oil prices jumped to the highest level since the start of the war amid fears of a long disruption.
The tens of thousands of troops now more than 700km north of the Kuwaiti border have encountered stiff resistance and atrocious weather, slowing the advance on Baghdad anticipated by military planners and placing a heavy burden on supplies coming up from the south.
US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who met at the Camp David presidential retreat Thursday, admitted the war launched on March 20 could last longer than expected.
Seeking to punch a hole in Iraqi defenses ahead of the decisive battle for Baghdad, US and British forces took advantage of a break in bad weather Thursday and yesterday to hit the seat of Saddam's power with some of the most punishing bombardments yet.
Explosions were heard on the outskirts of the city of 5 million in the early afternoon, a correspondent said, after intensive US and British bombing during the night from both aircraft and missile-launching ships.
Attacks blasted communication centers but telephone lines did not seem to have been cut, correspondents reported.
As preparations for a new front continued in the Kurdish-controlled north, where more than 1,000 US paratroops were dropped early Thursday, sporadic fighting took place in central Iraq.
The US army's 3rd Infantry Division was 80km south of Baghdad near Karbala while Marines were advancing north in two prongs between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, officials in Washington said.
US warplanes dropped 450kg bombs Thursday on an area between Karbala and Baghdad believed held by the Republican Guard's Medina division.
Resistance from lightly armed Iraqi irregulars in the south has raised the spectre of bloody street combat in the capital, as well as continuing attacks on US supply lines to the rear.
"The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against," the army's senior ground commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General William Wallace told The Washington Post at Forward Operating Base Shell, in Iraq.
Pentagon officials announced Thursday the US would more than double its ranks inside Iraq, with 120,000 troops ready to join the 90,000 already on the ground.
Both sides were now bracing for the climax of the US-led offensive against Saddam's regime, when allied troops eventually reach Baghdad and decide whether to lay siege to the city or invade it and face the horrors of what some analysts say could be "another Beirut."
Also See Stories:
Economists expect lengthy war to hammer markets
Non-American firms settle for crumbs
Crude oil rises on export cuts in Iraq, Nigeria
Analysts fear economy will slide into recession
War makes itself felt in the world of American business
American Airlines set to become war casualty
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS