Baghdad pounded, suicide bomber kills four US troops

2.00pm

UPDATE - US and British warplanes pounded Baghdad in unrelenting waves of bombing and missile strikes on Saturday after an Iraqi army officer killed four American soldiers in a suicide bombing.

An American official said a car exploded at a checkpoint near the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Najaf, about 100 miles south of Baghdad, killing the driver and four US soldiers who were searching the vehicle.

Iraq warned that the suicide bombing, the first against the US-led invasion force since the war began more than a week ago, was just a foretaste of more to come.

"Any method that stops or kills the enemy will be used," declared Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan. "The United States will turn the whole world into martyrs against it."

Iraqi state television, which was still broadcasting despite being targeted in repeated strikes, named the bomber as army officer Ali Hammadi al-Namani and said President Saddam Hussein had awarded him posthumous medals.

The suicide bombing jolted allied troops and threatened to complicate Washington's defence of its long supply lines from Kuwait and preparing for a major battle for Baghdad.

American officers in the field said there would be a four-to-six day pause in the advance to consolidate supply lines, but headquarters commanders appeared to contradict them, insisting they were pressing on with the war on many fronts.

Food rations have also been cut sharply for at least some front-line US units and fuel use has been limited, according to correspondents with the forces south of Baghdad.

At war command headquarters in Qatar, US spokesman Maj. Gen. Victor Renuart said operations were continuing exactly as planned. "There is no pause on the battlefield. Just because you see a particular formation pause on the battlefield it does not mean there is a pause," he said.

Some of the most ferocious air strikes of the war hit government targets in Baghdad and pounded Republican Guard positions in outlying areas.

"There has been a very heavy bombardment to the south and to the west. It seems unprecedented," said Reuters correspondent Nadim Ladki. "It is clear this is a major bombing campaign. The thuds of explosions just won't stop."

Ramadan lashed out at the United States and Britain. "They are bragging that a B-52 bomber can ... kill 500 people at a time... That's why people are transforming themselves into bombs," he said.

A US military spokesman said 30 Apache helicopters had attacked the Republican Guard Medina Division southwest of Baghdad, killing at least 50 troops and destroying about 25 vehicles, including tanks and armored personnel carriers.

"We fired 40 missiles and we had 40 hits," said Maj. Hugh Cate of the 101st Airborne Division.

In the southern city of Basra, US planes bombed a building where some 200 Iraqi paramilitaries were said to have been meeting. A military spokesman said early reports indicated that "no one came out" of the shattered two-story structure.

In Washington, a defence official said the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division had placed troops near Nassiriya, 235 miles southeast of Baghdad, to boost security for convoys.

Renuart said some cruise missiles aimed at Iraq had fallen on Saudi Arabia, forcing planners to suspend certain routes for launches to avoid endangering Saudi civilians.

The United States says it was checking to see whether its forces were responsible for a devastating explosion in a crowded Baghdad market on Friday. A hospital doctor said the toll from the attack had risen to 62 dead and 49 wounded.

British intelligence said Iraq replaced the commander of air defences in Baghdad after Iraqi surface-to-air missiles aimed at Western warplanes missed and fell back on the city.

American and British officials have suggested that stray Iraqi missiles could have been to blame for explosions in Baghdad that killed scores of civilians this week.

Seeking to counter criticism by military analysts and the media of the US war effort, officials from President Bush down began emphasising the cruelty of Saddam's rule.

"Every atrocity has confirmed the justice and urgency of our cause," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "In the last week the world had seen firsthand the cruel nature of a dying regime."

The Pentagon launched a public relations offensive to illustrate the "brutality of Iraqi regime," showing videoclips of Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Kurds 15 years ago.

Yet achieving Bush's goal of complete victory seemed some way off, with US columns finding their advance hampered by tenacious Iraqi resistance and supply problems.

Saddam was expected to fiercely defend his power bases in Baghdad and Tikrit, but Iraqi guerrilla tactics have surprised the invaders and slowed their advance. Few analysts anticipated sustained Iraqi resistance in the mainly Shi'ite southern towns that revolted against him after the 1991 Gulf War.

"It is hard to avoid the impression that they are meeting much more resistance than they had expected," said UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix in a Swedish radio interview.

US military forensic experts began probing a shallow grave found in the southern town of Nassiriya.

A senior officer at the Pentagon said he could not say whether the grave held the remains of 12 missing soldiers from the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company who were taken prisoner last Sunday after they were ambushed by Iraqi forces.

In northern Iraq, anti-Saddam Kurdish fighters said they had pushed up to 16 miles overnight from the Qushtapa crossing point into territory previously held by Iraqi troops.

The claim could not be confirmed. If true, it would be the second sign this week that Iraqi troops have pulled back toward the oil city of Kirkuk after repeated US air strikes.

A British soldier was killed and five were wounded on, Saturday, apparently in "friendly fire" from US aircraft, British officials said.

Before the incident the official British death toll in the war was 20, only five of whom were killed in combat.

Since the war began, US forces have lost 30 killed, 104 wounded, 15 missing and seven taken prisoner, a US official said. The toll includes accidents as well as combat.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq