British and American troops were fighting for the strategic southern port cityof Basra today after another massive air assault pounded Baghdad at dawn.
The attack on the capital came at first light, just hours after the biggestaerial bombardment of the war so far. Mushroom clouds rose into the darknesslast night as more than 300 Tomahawk cruise missiles rained down on the city.
In the south, the battle for Basra, an oil hub of 1.3 million people, was wellunderway by midday, with coalition troops trying to surround Iraqi positions andforce a surrender.
US aircraft bombed Iraqi tanks holding bridges close to the city. Iraqi forcesresponded with artillery fire.
As coalition troops advanced, an entire Iraqi army division gave itself up.
British armed forces chief Admiral Sir Michael Boyce said theIraqi 51st division had surrendered in the Basra area and there nowwere "many thousands" of prisoners of war.
But Allied successes were marred by the collision of two Royal Navyhelicopters over the Persian Gulf in which all six British crew members and oneAmerican were killed.
Early today, American Marines and British troops rumbled along the main roadfrom the Kuwaiti border to Basra, Highway 80, nicknamed the "Highway of Death"during the 1991 Gulf War, when an Iraqi military convoy on it was wiped out byUS air strikes.
American units advancing west of Basra have already secured the Rumeila oilfield, whose daily output of 1.3 million barrels makes it Iraq's mostproductive.
But US Marines were still battling Iraqi resistance on theoutskirts of the strategic southern port of Umm Qasr.
US Cobra helicopters were engaged in combat, firing missileswhile both sides were heard launching mortar rounds. The Iraqis haveapparently placed a number of anti-tank mines around the area.
In Baghdad, Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf saidthe Iraqi military had inflicted "heavy losses" on US and Britishtroops while repelling attacks in southern Iraq.
Other units moved into airfield complexes in western Iraq believed to haveScud missiles capable of reaching Israel, and possibly weapons of massdestruction.
Meanwhile, the scene on the Kuwaiti border resembled a huge traffic jam, withhundreds of tanks, armoured personnel carriers, Humvees and trucks were lined upwaiting to cross into Iraq.
By early next week, US ground forces led by the Army's 3rd Infantry Divisionare likely to be at the outskirts of Baghdad, where they could face greaterdanger from the Republican Guard, some commanders said.
Agencies