US forces turn heart of Baghdad into battle zone

US forces staged an explosive show of strength in central Baghdad Tuesday morning (local time) blasting government targets virtually at will after trying to kill President Saddam Hussein and his sons with four huge bombs.

Aircraft, tanks and artillery pounded the nerve centre of Saddam's administration in a thundering raid that began at dawn, meeting only scattered return fire from Iraqi fighters with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

"It's raining bombs," said Reuters correspondent Samia Nakhoul. "They're targeting the same area over and over. The place is shaking and there's smoke rising," she said from the Palestine hotel where most foreign media are based.

Later a US tank fired at the hotel, killing Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and wounding Nakhoul and two other Reuters colleagues, as well as a Spanish cameraman.

Their injuries were not thought to be life threatening.

A US general said the tank had fired a single round to silence small arms and grenade fire from the hotel. Journalists at the hotel said they had heard no such firing in the vicinity.

Al-Jazeera reporter-producer Tarek Ayoub, a Jordanian, was killed during a US air raid, the Arab satellite television said. Another crew member, Zohair al-Iraqi, was slightly hurt when Jazeera's office near the Information Ministry was hit.

The US military said it was expanding its presence in Baghdad and had met no organised resistance.

"What you're seeing is a vice. A vice is closing in on this regime, and as the vice closes their time is running out," spokesman Lieutenant Mark Kitchens told Reuters television.

Two Abrams tanks emerged onto the Jumhuriya bridge across the Tigris river in a clear symbol of power to forces still loyal to Saddam in this battered city of five million people.

But Iraq's ever-defiant information minister said Iraqi forces would "tackle and destroy" the invaders.

"They are going to surrender or be burned in their tanks," Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf told reporters in front of the Palestine Hotel. "Baghdad is bracing itself to pummel the invaders."

Ambulances raced through the streets, ferrying casualties to hospitals already struggling to cope with the impact of fighting that reached the core of the capital on Monday.

As the 20-day-old war to topple Saddam neared its climax, US President George W. Bush was meeting his British ally, Prime Minister Tony Blair, to discuss the future of Iraq.

"We will move as quickly as possible to place governmental responsibilities under the control of an interim authority composed of Iraqis from both inside and outside the country," Bush said after the summit in Northern Ireland.

"The interim authority will serve until a permanent government can be chosen by the Iraqi people."

Blair said Bush had agreed there would be a "vital role" for the United Nations in Iraqi reconstruction. The British leader said the "new Iraq" would be run by its people, not by Britain, the United States or the United Nations.

In Baghdad, talk of reconstruction seemed remote.

Smoke and flames poured from government ministries and official buildings pounded by US planes, tanks and artillery.

Jets and helicopters could be seen attacking a Republican Guard compound southeast of the centre.

US Marines pushing into Baghdad from the east said they had seized the Rashid military airfield, some five km (three miles) from the centre. Iraqi forces had abandoned it.

One US A-10 Warthog ground attack fighter came down near Baghdad international airport, which is held by the Americans. The pilot ejected and was rescued.

Iraqi state television went off the air. It had not broadcast a morning news bulletin, showing only old footage of Saddam being cheered at rallies. The radio also went silent briefly, but returned with a diet of songs praising Saddam.

The US military indicated that it had targeted the transmitters. "Clearly we would like to destroy Saddam's capability to disseminate lies," said Major Michael Birmingham.

US spokesman Captain Frank Thorp said it was not known whether Saddam had been in a building in a residential area hit by US bombs late on Monday. "We do not yet have results of that strike. We will take opportunities to attack regime control or leadership targets as those opportunities emerge," he said.

Saddam was also targeted in the first US strike of the war, in the early hours of March 20, that hit a residential compound on the western outskirts of Baghdad.

Witnesses said two houses were flattened and four buildings badly damaged by 900kg bombs in Monday's air raid on the Mansur district. They said nine Iraqis were killed and four wounded.

Confusion and fear gripped the capital, where few telephones are working. Residents desperately questioned journalists on the progress of US forces, or tried to get messages to relatives abroad via the few foreign aid agencies still operating.

Reuters correspondent Khaled Yacoub Oweis visited one hospital where wounded civilians sat and stared blankly. One man wondered where the Iraqi military had gone.

"They (the Americans) control the air. I think our people chose not to fight," he said.

A spokesman in Kuwait said a US-led civil administration would start work in Iraq today when a team of about 20 officials deploys in the southern port of Umm Qasr.

"You can say it is our first step in setting up ORHA's regions inside Iraq," said a spokesman for the administration, known as the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), which is currently based in Kuwait.

Its mission is to provide humanitarian assistance, work on reconstructing Iraq and install a civil administration to pave the way for the creation of an interim Iraqi government.

The administration is headed by retired US General Jay Garner, who made a preliminary visit to Umm Qasr last week. Garner will report to US war commander General Tommy Franks.

Garner's presence in Kuwait has prompted deep Arab suspicion about Washington's motives, and widespread calls that the United Nations be given the job of handling postwar Iraq.

A British military spokesman said a tribal leader would help form a new leadership in the southern province of Basra. Chris Vernon also said British forces controlled Basra, Iraq's second city, but would take a few days to cement their position there.

In the north, US planes pounded Iraqi positions in and around the oil hub of Kirkuk in one of the heaviest attacks yet in the area, a Kurdish commander said.

US forces also battled Iraqis northwest of the central city of Hilla, using helicopters and artillery against fighters with small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, Reuters correspondent Andrew Gray reported from the area.

On world markets, investors began looking past the war in Iraq to worries about the US economy, sending stocks lower and bonds higher. Oil and gold prices were up. The dollar was flat.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq war