- (AFP) -- US troops exchanged heavy artillery and gunfire
with Iraqi soldiers after taking control of large swathes of Baghdad's
Saddam International Airport, an AFP correspondent reported.
-
- Fighting flared around 7.30 am (0330 GMT) shortly after
US forces said they had seized around 80 percent of the sprawling civilian
and military airport complex, just 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the centre
of the capital.
-
- Iraqi forces were shelling US positions within the airport
while plumes of smoke were seen rising close to a series of hangars.
-
- The smoke appeared to be the result of US artillery fire,
indicating that Iraqis were still holding out in the hangars.
-
- US planes were also continuing to bombard the airport
amid Iraqi anti-aircraft fire.
-
- The grunting sound of A-10 Thunderbolt "Tankbusters"
firing rounds from overhead could be heard while the wreckage of Iraqi
tanks was seen on the ground.
-
- Colonel Will Grimsley, commander of the 3rd Infantry
Division's 1st Brigade, said that "US forces have occupied the VIP
terminal at the airport."
-
- Another officer, Major John Altman, said that "probably
80 percent" of the airport was under US control but it would not be
totally secure "until you've gone to every room of every building.
There's a lot of buildings."
-
- Forty prisoners of war had been taken in the fighting,
Grimsley added.
-
- "They are all Special Republican Guard and special
forces."
-
- Two American soldiers sustained shrapnel wounds in the
fighting, said Grimsley, but there were no reported US fatalities.
-
- He would only say the number of Iraqi casualties was
"high" after witnesses reported earlier that dozens of Iraqis
had been killed.
-
- The assault on the airport began at 7:30 pm (1630 GMT)
Thursday when the first US Bradley fighting vehicles and M1 Abrams tanks
breached the the airport perimeter, Captain Michael McKinnon of the 1st
brigade said.
-
- US Air Force F-15E and F18 fighter jets dropped JDAMs
(Direct Attack Munitions, or smart bombs) as the 1st Brigade attacked the
airport from the ground, said Master Sergeant Russ Carpenter, an air force
liaison officer on the scene.
-
- The air strikes hit "at least 40, and that's a conservative
estimate" Iraqi armoured personnel carriers, artillery pieces and
tanks, Carpenter said, adding that they also hit Iraqi anti-aircraft guns
but did not take all of them out.
-
- Fighter bombers who flew from the USS Kitty Hawk targeted
fuel and hangar facilities at the airport and also dropped 2,000-pound
bombs on a nearby military complex, Lieutenant Brook Dewalt told reporters
on board the aircraft carrier.
-
- The US forces encountered little resistance in the initial
assault before the Friday morning firefight.
-
- More than 1,000 US troops from the 1st Brigade were active
in and around the airport, US officers said.
-
- In Washington, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said
the US-led forces were "closing in on Baghdad".
-
- "They are closer to the center of the Iraqi capital
capital than many American commuters are to their downtown offices,"
he said at a Pentagon news conference.
-
- But Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf
denied Thursday, before the attack on the airport, that US forces were
close to Baghdad. They were "not even 100 miles" from the city
and were trapped in combat with Iraqi troops in every major town, he said.
-
- British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said the capture
of the airport would be a "huge psychological blow" to Saddam's
regime.
-
- "We know they've (the Iraqi people) been told by
elements of the regime, the leadership that there are no coalition forces
anywhere near Baghdad. They will be able to see for themselves soon how
untrue that is," Hoon said.
-
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