US maintains relentless Baghdad blitz

BAGHDAD - The United States has battered Baghdad in some of the heaviest air strikes in nine days of war, but Iraq has swore to fight on.

One of the most advanced US aircraft, the B-2 stealth bomber, took part in the relentless blitz, dropping two big bombs on a tower block housing a communications link.

Reuters correspondent Nadim Ladki saw two damaged communications centres in the capital. One big building had been struck at its base. A tangled pile of smouldering rubble was all that was left of a smaller facility. Many telephone lines were knocked out.

A large fire blazed on the west bank of the River Tigris and thick smoke billowed on the horizon after dozens of blasts hit the eastern and southern fringes of Baghdad during the day.

Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said overnight raids on the capital had killed seven civilians and wounded 92.

He also accused US forces of cluster bombing the Shi'ite shrine city of Najaf, killing 26 civilians and wounding 60.

In the ground war, a US officer said US forces had battled around 1,500 Iraqis overnight near Najaf, 160 km south of the capital, but he had no word on casualties.

Reuters reporter Luke Baker, near Najaf, said US forces had used tanks and heavy artillery. "The battle raged for a few hours," Baker said.

Sahaf said Iraqi forces had destroyed 33 tanks and armoured vehicles and killed four invaders in the area.

After chaotic scenes of Iraqis struggling to grab sparse supplies of food and water, the first humanitarian aid ship docked in the southern port of Umm Qasr.

The Sir Galahad, a British naval supply vessel carrying 200 tonnes of food, medicine, blankets and water, arrived after days of delay while mines were cleared from the waterway.

The shipment is part of an aid flow planned by London and Washington to show their foe is Saddam, not his people.

Gritty Iraqi resistance to US and British forces who want to be seen as liberators, not invaders, has doused expectations of a swift victory. Iraqi leaders have vowed to fight street by street to defend Baghdad, even if it is surrounded.

The United States ordered 100,000 more troops to the Gulf, but Sahaf said US forces faced a bleak fate with or without reinforcements. "Iraq, with its weapons, its people and its territory, will become a living hell for the invaders," he said.

Many thousands of people protested against the war around the Arab and Islamic world on Friday, the Muslim holy day. In Iran, which warred with Iraq in the 1980s, tens of thousands shouted "Death to America" and "Death to Saddam".

With investors worried about the impact of a protracted conflict on the global economy, oil prices rose to their highest since the war began, stocks fell and gold rose US$2 an ounce.

US President George W. Bush said after a war council with his ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, that the campaign to oust Saddam would be won "no matter how long it takes".

In the south, Britain said Iraqi forces had fired mortars and machineguns at about 1,000 civilians fleeing the besieged city of Basra. One woman was seriously hurt.

Sahaf said 116 people had been killed and 659 wounded in Basra, Iraq's second city, since the war began on March 20.

In northern Iraq, jubilant Kurdish fighters poured over one frontline near the town of Chamchamal after Iraqi troops withdrew towards the oil city of Kirkuk, leaving five bodies in a bunker. US planes have often bombed the Iraqi lines.

More US troops arrived in the north overnight, advancing plans to open a new front against Baghdad.

Reuters journalist Soheil Afdjei saw four transport helicopters, up to 60 vehicles and about 150 troops at the Harir airstrip, a day after 1,000 paratroopers secured it.

Turkey's refusal to let 62,000 US troops and heavy armour move across its soil to Iraq forced the Pentagon to rethink its original war plans, which had envisaged attacking Saddam's power bases in Baghdad and Tikrit from the north as well as the south.

US columns moving towards Baghdad from the south appeared to pause on Friday to regroup and consolidate supply lines.

American forces were also building up about 80 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, preparing for what could be a critical battle with Republican Guards near the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala.

"Kerbala is shaping up to be a key battle," said US Lieutenant Colonel Paul Grosskruger.

In central Baghdad's Saadoun street, militiamen were clearing rubble from the smouldering al-Alawiya communications centre hit overnight. "This is a civilian communications centre, why did they hit it?" one resident asked.

In the western district of Jihad, Iraqi officials showed reporters a partly burned US drone that had come down there, setting a house on fire, but causing no casualties.

Naeem Sultan, a resident, said the reconnaissance plane had been shot down in the morning.

A US military spokesman in Qatar said he could not confirm "any birds down" on Friday. US officials confirmed they had lost a drone over Iraq on Thursday but would not say where.

Black smoke poured into blue skies from burning oil trenches round Baghdad lit by Iraqi forces to try and hamper US and British pilots.

Hundreds of Baath Party militiamen armed with AK-47 assault rifles were guarding government buildings and manning sandbagged posts on street corners and trenches in squares and gardens.

The United States and Britain launched the war to overthrow Saddam and rid Iraq of alleged weapons of mass destruction. Iraq denies it has any, and none has yet been found.

US military leaders said on Friday Iraq may have told its forces to be ready to use chemical weapons at some point, but said they were not aware that any such orders had been given.

Herald Feature: Iraq