- BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S.
forces battled Iraqi fighters south of Baghdad and pummeled the capital
from the air on Monday in a marked intensification of the 12-day-old war
to topple President Saddam Hussein.
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- A thunderous artillery barrage opened up on the city's
southern outskirts as warplanes screamed low over the Iraqi capital, a
Reuters correspondent in the center said.
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- At least one American soldier was killed in one of several
firefights around towns and river crossings in the south.
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- The latest military operations indicated U.S. commanders
were determined to take the fight to Iraqi militiamen harrying their advance,
while hitting regular troops and Republican Guard units blocking routes
to Baghdad.
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- Bombs and missiles shook the heart of the capital, knocking
local television briefly off the air after America's top soldier vowed
to "draw the noose tighter" around Baghdad.
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- But General Richard Myers, head of the U.S. Joint Chiefs
of Staff, signaled there would be no early ground assault on Baghdad. "We'll
be patient," he said in Washington.
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- A cruise missile hit the Information Ministry in Baghdad
in the second night strike on the building in three days. State television
broadcasts began four hours later than usual.
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- At daybreak, two blasts hit a presidential palace used
by Saddam's son Qusay, who commands the elite Republican Guard.
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- Planes pounded the capital's southern outskirts in the
morning, apparently aiming at Republican Guard defenses.
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- U.S. forces may not try to storm Baghdad until they have
disabled its defenses from the air and secured long supply lines against
attacks by Iraqi fighters in a string of southern towns.
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- BATTLE NEAR BABYLON
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- American units battled Iraqi fighters on the Euphrates
river near the site of ancient Babylon on Monday in what appeared to be
the closest the land war has yet come to the capital.
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- On a front about 70 miles south of Baghdad, U.S. forces
said many Iraqis and at least one American were killed in a battle near
Hilla. A separate fight erupted near a bridge over the Euphrates at Hindiya,
just 50 miles from Baghdad.
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- "There's still extremely heavy contact right now,"
said Captain Brad Loudon of the 2nd Battalion 70th Armored Regiment near
Imam Aiyub, where burned out vehicles littered the sides of the road after
air strikes and clashes in recent days.
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- Troops used tanks, helicopters and artillery, and called
in British and U.S. air strikes against the Iraqis, who hit back with tanks,
mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
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- At Hindiya, Iraqi prisoners taken in fighting included
an officer who said he was from the Nebuchadnezzar Division of the Republican
Guard -- a claim that surprised U.S. commanders who said they believed
this division to be based much further north.
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- Colonel John Peabody of the U.S. Third Infantry Division
told Reuters correspondent Luke Baker near Kerbala, 10 km (seven miles)
from Hindiya, that one American soldier had been lightly wounded and that
the Iraqis had taken dozens of casualties.
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- Monday's death near Hilla raised the U.S. casualty toll
in the war to at least 46 with another 17 missing.
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- Britain has lost 25 dead, one more than in the 1991 Gulf
War. Only five have been killed in action, while 15 have died in accidents
and five by "friendly fire."
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- Iraq has said nearly 600 Iraqi civilians have been killed
and over 4,500 wounded. It has not listed military casualties.
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- Further south, U.S. Marines stormed a town north of the
key city of Nassiriya and searched Nassiriya's southern outskirts street
by street to eliminate Iraqi fighters.
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- HUNT FOR "CHEMICAL ALI"
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- Marines who had been heading north toward Kut and Baghdad
after storming through Nassiriya under fire from Iraqi paramilitaries turned
back south to raid the town of Shatra.
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- Reuters correspondent Sean Maguire, traveling with the
Marines, said they were targeting Iraqi officials commanding lightly armed
forces which have attacked U.S. supply convoys.
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- Among those sought in Shatra was Ali Hassan al-Majid,
or "Chemical Ali," who is commanding the southern sector.
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- Majid, a feared cousin of Saddam, earned his nickname
for overseeing the use of poison gas against Kurds in 1988.
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- Maguire said U.S. warplanes had bombed four targets in
Shatra. "Tanks and armored personnel carriers then moved in force
to the edge of the town while Huey helicopter gunships raked the rubble-strewn
target sites with heavy machinegun fire."
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- On the southern edge of Nassiriya itself, 235 miles southeast
of Baghdad, Reuters correspondent Adrian Croft watched Marines raid an
abandoned military camp. They found weapons, gas masks and supplies of
atropine, a nerve gas antidote.
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- "We are going in to go block by block and we are
going to weed out all enemy personnel," said Captain Rick Crevier,
commander of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st U.S. Marines.
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- U.S. troops raced toward Baghdad early in the war, but
left behind towns where Iraqi paramilitaries have tried to disrupt supply
lines that stretch up to 235 miles from Kuwait.
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- RUMSFELD FENDS OFF CRITICS
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- U.S. military officials have been fending off criticism
that they launched the war with insufficient ground strength.
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- Some U.S. leaders had suggested many Iraqis, particularly
in the Shi'ite south, would surrender or stage revolts after decades of
repressive rule by Saddam's Baathist party.
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- But their hopes of a swift victory have faded in the
face of tough Iraqi resistance and guerrilla tactics such as a suicide
bombing on Saturday that killed four American soldiers.
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- A British survey showed support for the war had fallen
for the first time since it began. A poll on Sunday said 55 percent of
Americans felt the government had been too optimistic.
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- Worries that a long war in Iraq could derail the global
economy hit European and Asian stocks on Monday. The dollar fell and oil
prices rose, as did safe-haven gold.
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- In northern Iraq, U.S. aircraft continued to bomb targets
in Iraqi government-held territory and U.S. and British special forces
in the Kurdish-run zone scouted Iraqi positions.
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- Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said the war was
going well for Iraq and defended the use of suicide bombers.
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- "When you fight an invader by whatever means available
to you, you are not a terrorist; you are a hero," he said.
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- The radical Palestinian group Islamic Jihad said it had
sent would-be suicide bombers to Baghdad, and Iraq said 4,000 willing "martyrs"
from across the Arab world were already there.
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- Kuwait said an Egyptian electrician is the main suspect
in an incident on Sunday when a truck slammed into a group of U.S. soldiers
in the emirate, injuring 15. His motives were unclear.
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- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the war on Iraq
would have "horrible consequences" and produce "100 new
bin Ladens."
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- He was referring to Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, blamed
by the United States for the September 11 attacks.
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