US forces thrust into the heart of Baghdad today, raiding two of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces. US commanders refused to say how long US troops would stay in the city - but as night fell this evening they were still occupying Saddam Hussein's main palace.
US Central Command claimed much of Baghdad was no longer in the hands of Saddam's regime and that the city had been left "isolated". "I would characterise what we're doing in Baghdad as having isolated Baghdad, that is that we have checkpoints at all of the major arteries leading in and out of the city," Central Command spokeswoman Major Rumi Nielson-Green told Fox News.
A Pentagon spokesman said the US military operation was a "show of force" aimed at sending a powerful message to the Iraqi regime - but it is not necessarily the "battle for Baghdad".
Journalists in the capital and US officers outside it said the Iraqi defences had fought back with some force.
An Iraqi rocket attack on a command tent south of Baghdad killed two US soldiers and two journalists, and wounded 15 soldiers, two of them critically. Names and details were not released.
In a separate incident in fighting on the eastern outskirts of Baghdad, two Marines were killed while trying to secure two bridges in what Marines said appeared to be an incident of "friendly fire".
Television viewers worldwide saw dramatic footage of US troops moving on Saddam's Republican Palace compound in Baghdad, during what commanders described as a raid and not an all-out assault to take the capital.
Spokesmen refused to be drawn on whether the troops would stay after officers said more than 100 tanks and armoured vehicles pushed into Baghdad after daybreak.
A series of explosions in the morning was punctuated by gunfire, while in the afternoon a fierce battle was heard raging around the landmark Al-Rashid hotel. Iraqi fighters blocked journalists from approaching the area.
"The regime is not in control of the whole city," Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told reporters at the Central Command base in Qatar, adding that it would be up to field commanders to decide whether to hold their ground.
Lieutenant Colonel Peter Bayer, the 3rd Infantry Division's operations officer, told AFP: "We've been significantly challenged."
Earlier he said that US troops "own" two Saddam palaces in the city centre and a third near the airport southwest of the capital.
|
|
An Iraqi man carries eggs as he passes in front of a column of tanks from the 2nd Battalion, 70 Armor in the town of Kerbala south west of Baghdad.
|
The United States and Britain, which launched the war on March 20th, say it will not be over until Saddam and his inner circle are ousted from power. They have expressed doubt over Iraq's insistence that Saddam is still alive.
In mid-afternoon, as the fighting was raging, state television showed him meeting with a senior aide though there was no way to know when the footage was shot.
His information minister, Mr Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf, denied US forces were in Baghdad. He was speaking to reporters close to the Republican Palace, where US tanks and armour were parked outside.
"The war of words is over," said Captain Frank Thorp, a US spokesman.
A missile crashed into a residential neighborhood in central Baghdad, according to reports. Ambulances leaving the scene with sirens wailing.
From the southeast, US Marines entered Baghdad undeterred by the blowing up of two bridges on the Diyala River, which runs east of the Iraqi capital.
"We're in Baghdad and we're in Baghdad to stay," said Brigadier General John Kelly, assistant commander of the First Marine Division.
Meanwhile, Britain said the battle for Iraq's second city, Basra in the south, was effectively over. It said reports indicated that a Saddam cousin blamed for a gas attack on Iraqi Kurds, "Chemical Ali," had been killed.
Elsewhere, forces from the US 101st Airborne Division secured the central city of Karbala, killing 400 Iraqi paramilitaries as they crushed resistance from about 500 Saddam loyalists, division spokesman Major Hugh Cate said.
Officers said fewer than 100 Iraqis had been taken prisoner while almost all the rest were killed in a battle that saw intensive house-to-house searches.
Agencies Agencies