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Baghdad bombing continues, allies admit war could be long
Baghdad, Mar 28: Baghdad was rocked by fresh explosions early today as the allies kept up the pressure on Saddam Hussein`s regime, relentlessly pounding the Iraqi capital in preparation for a final push.
Baghdad, Mar 28: Baghdad was rocked by fresh explosions early today as the allies kept up the pressure on Saddam Hussein`s regime, relentlessly pounding the Iraqi capital in preparation for a final push.
But US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted the war could last longer than expected.
The explosions shook the hotel housing the international press corps at around 7:00 am (0930 IST), although the targets of the new raids could not immediately be identified, a news agency reported.
The Iraqi capital was bombarded throughout yesterday and into the night, with successive raids leaving columns of smoke billowing from several spots inside the city of five million and on the outskirts.
A Naval spokesman on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean said coalition destroyers in the area had fired around 10 Tomahawk cruise missiles on Baghdad.
The night-time raids followed yesterday`s battering of the city in the most intense rounds of daylight strikes since the war began on March 20. Among the targets struck was a building in President Saddam Hussein`s Republican Palace compound.
US forces who parachuted into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq yesterday continued their preparations for the opening of a new front, while sporadic fighting continued as allied forces pressed on from the south.
The US army`s 3rd Infantry Division was 80 kms south of Baghdad at Karbala after a dash through southern Iraq while Marines were advancing north in two prongs between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.
Stiffer than expected resistance from lightly armed Iraqi irregulars in the south has raised the specter of bloody street combat in the capital, as well as continuing attacks on US supply lines to the rear.
Pentagon officials announced yesterday the US would more than double its ranks engaged in Iraq, with 120,000 troops ready to join the 90,000 already on the ground.
Both sides were now bracing for the climax of the US-led offensive against Saddam`s regime, when allied troops eventually reach Baghdad and decide whether to lay siege to the city or invade it.
Defence Minister Sultan Hashem Ahmad vowed that Baghdad would not be taken, while acknowledging that US forces were nearing the city limits.
“We will not be surprised if the enemy surrounds Baghdad in five or 10 days but he will have to take the city. Baghdad cannot be taken by the Americans or the Britons as long as the citizens in it are still alive”, he said yesterday. Meanwhile Bush said after huddling with Blair at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland yesterday: “Slowly but surely, the grip of terror around the throats of the Iraqi people is being loosened”. The US leader said the war would last “however long it takes to win, however long it takes to achieve our objectives”.
Blair denounced the Iraqi regime for what he termed the executions of captured Britons. “If anyone needed any further evidence of the depravity of Saddam`s regime, this atrocity provides it,” he said.
Blair and Bush did not address a broader role for the United Nations, amid signs of a split between London and Washington, which has categorically rejected un control of Iraq following the war.
Bush said yesterday: “Iraq`s greatest long-term need is a representative government that protects the rights of all Iraqis. The form of this government will be chosen by the Iraqi people, not imposed by outsiders”.
The council of the leadership of the Iraqi opposition, meeting in the northern Iraqi town of Salahaddin, issued a statement Tuesday vowing to create such a government, but state department spokesman Richard Boucher yesterday said it would not have Washington`s backing or recognition.
“Iraq`s future needs to be decided by the broadest possible grouping of Iraqis, reflecting Iraq`s diverse ethnic and religious makeup and people from both inside and outside Iraq”, he told reporters.
The UN Security Council agreed on a draft resolution to reactivate its Oil-for-Food program in Iraq which may be adopted unanimously within 24 hours.
Meanwhile, British tanks and troops are struggling to secure the strategic port city of Basra, a gateway for humanitarian aid, where the situation remained unclear.
Further south, the discovery of more sea mines in the deep-water port of Umm Qasr delayed the first shipment of British aid into Iraq, a British officer said.
Bureau Report
The explosions shook the hotel housing the international press corps at around 7:00 am (0930 IST), although the targets of the new raids could not immediately be identified, a news agency reported.
The Iraqi capital was bombarded throughout yesterday and into the night, with successive raids leaving columns of smoke billowing from several spots inside the city of five million and on the outskirts.
A Naval spokesman on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean said coalition destroyers in the area had fired around 10 Tomahawk cruise missiles on Baghdad.
The night-time raids followed yesterday`s battering of the city in the most intense rounds of daylight strikes since the war began on March 20. Among the targets struck was a building in President Saddam Hussein`s Republican Palace compound.
US forces who parachuted into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq yesterday continued their preparations for the opening of a new front, while sporadic fighting continued as allied forces pressed on from the south.
The US army`s 3rd Infantry Division was 80 kms south of Baghdad at Karbala after a dash through southern Iraq while Marines were advancing north in two prongs between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.
Stiffer than expected resistance from lightly armed Iraqi irregulars in the south has raised the specter of bloody street combat in the capital, as well as continuing attacks on US supply lines to the rear.
Pentagon officials announced yesterday the US would more than double its ranks engaged in Iraq, with 120,000 troops ready to join the 90,000 already on the ground.
Both sides were now bracing for the climax of the US-led offensive against Saddam`s regime, when allied troops eventually reach Baghdad and decide whether to lay siege to the city or invade it.
Defence Minister Sultan Hashem Ahmad vowed that Baghdad would not be taken, while acknowledging that US forces were nearing the city limits.
“We will not be surprised if the enemy surrounds Baghdad in five or 10 days but he will have to take the city. Baghdad cannot be taken by the Americans or the Britons as long as the citizens in it are still alive”, he said yesterday. Meanwhile Bush said after huddling with Blair at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland yesterday: “Slowly but surely, the grip of terror around the throats of the Iraqi people is being loosened”. The US leader said the war would last “however long it takes to win, however long it takes to achieve our objectives”.
Blair denounced the Iraqi regime for what he termed the executions of captured Britons. “If anyone needed any further evidence of the depravity of Saddam`s regime, this atrocity provides it,” he said.
Blair and Bush did not address a broader role for the United Nations, amid signs of a split between London and Washington, which has categorically rejected un control of Iraq following the war.
Bush said yesterday: “Iraq`s greatest long-term need is a representative government that protects the rights of all Iraqis. The form of this government will be chosen by the Iraqi people, not imposed by outsiders”.
The council of the leadership of the Iraqi opposition, meeting in the northern Iraqi town of Salahaddin, issued a statement Tuesday vowing to create such a government, but state department spokesman Richard Boucher yesterday said it would not have Washington`s backing or recognition.
“Iraq`s future needs to be decided by the broadest possible grouping of Iraqis, reflecting Iraq`s diverse ethnic and religious makeup and people from both inside and outside Iraq”, he told reporters.
The UN Security Council agreed on a draft resolution to reactivate its Oil-for-Food program in Iraq which may be adopted unanimously within 24 hours.
Meanwhile, British tanks and troops are struggling to secure the strategic port city of Basra, a gateway for humanitarian aid, where the situation remained unclear.
Further south, the discovery of more sea mines in the deep-water port of Umm Qasr delayed the first shipment of British aid into Iraq, a British officer said.
Bureau Report