Kuwaiti aid convoy arrives in Southern Iraq

A seven-truck convoy of Kuwaiti food aid today arrived in the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr, whose people are short of supplies after days of fighting that ended with US and British forces taking control.

The US Navy said, meanwhile, that minesweepers had cleared a channel to Umm Qasr that would allow aid ships to arrive soon.

Three trucks of food, three of water and one of mixed supplies drove in from neighbouring Kuwait after a heavy sandstorm forced organisers to scale back original plans to send 30 trucks.

E J Russell, a US government official working with the Kuwaiti government, said the main need in Iraq was for food and water. "It's not an urgent, urgent need, but there is a need and if we get in then perhaps it won't become urgent," she said.

US and British forces sought to capture Umm Qasr, Iraq's only deep-water port situated on the border with Kuwait, soon after invading Iraq last Thursday, but resistance by Iraqi troops and militiamen continued until Tuesday.

A US military police escort accompanied the Kuwaiti convoy. "Normally we wouldn't get involved in this at all, but because of the security situation we have to," said US Army Major James Brown.

"We want to be first in to prove to the Iraqi people that we have no hard feelings," General Ali al-Mumin, head of the Kuwaiti humanitarian operation, said before the convoy left.

"Our government and our people want to make sure we play our role in full to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people."

Kuwaitis have no love for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who launched an invasion and seven-month occupation of their country in 1990.

A British ship carrying 231 tonnes of food, medicine, blankets and fresh water is expected to arrive in the next day or two at Umm Qasr following demining of sea lanes.

A spokesman for the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, Lieutenant Garrett Kasper, said: "The major demining push at Umm Qasr is complete...We have cleared a sea lane to the port."

He said ships should be able to berth very soon, but declined to give an exact timetable.

- REUTERS

Iraq
Herald Feature: Iraq