Baghdad burns after US blitzkrieg

The massive air assault came even as invasion forces advanced swiftly towards the city where Saddam’s supporters dug in for a last stand.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said there was no direct contact with the Iraqi leadership about giving up but there was individual contact between US-led forces and Iraqis over surrender.

General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon briefing there would be more airstrikes coming, saying several hundred military targets would be hit in the ‘‘coming hours.’’

A US official said it was the start of a major air war, dubbed by the Pentagon as ‘‘shock and awe.’’ A fleet of B-52 bombers had earlier been seen taking off from an airfield in southern England.

Iraq said Saddam had survived a US attempt to target him directly on Thursday. But rumours persisted that the Iraqi leader was dead. British and US officials said they did not know whether he was alive or dead.

Several big explosions were also heard around the city of Kirkuk in the north and anti-aircraft guns blasted the skies over Mosul.

US and British leaders said the campaign to oust Saddam was going according to plan but warned that the real battle still lay ahead.

Saddam has withdrawn his best trained and most loyal forces to Baghdad, where he may be planning to force invaders into dangerous and punishing street fighting in hopes of inflicting heavy casualties.

In a day of swift developments, US Marines captured the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr while other troops seized two airfields in the Iraqi desert 225 km and 290 km west of the capital, part of a move to encircle Baghdad. British Marines launched an amphibious and aerial assault and secured key oil installations at the head of the Gulf. Other British troops headed for Basra. There were unconfirmed reports that US special forces had secured the giant oilfields around Kirkuk in northern Iraq.

One US armoured unit ran into Iraqi resistance that halted it temporarily near Nassiriya on the Euphrates river while it called for backup. The town is a main strategic crossing point over the Euphrates, 375 km south-east of Baghdad.

The startling speed of a US advance from Kuwait deep into the Iraqi desert had prompted some British and American officers to predict a swift victory.

‘‘We’re making progress,’’ President George Bush told lawmakers in the Oval Office. ‘‘We will stay on task until we’ve achieved our objective, which is to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and free the Iraqi people.’’ But British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the war would not be won overnight and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the conflict could still be ‘‘lengthy and dangerous.’’

Reuters correspondent Andrew Gray, travelling with elements of the US 3rd Infantry Division, said the unit had come under fire near Nassiriya. He saw US troops return fire with rockets. US officers said they expected soon ‘‘to go and join the battle.’’

Iraqi ministers vowed to ‘‘incinerate’’ the invaders and asserted that Saddam had survived an early missile strike on a leadership bunker.

But Washington appeared to be holding much of its air power in reserve, apparently hoping that Iraqi resistance would collapse as invasion troops neared the capital. Commanders said the next 24 hours would be decisive.

British commandos took the Faw peninsula on Iraq’s southern tip, seizing oil export terminals, but Iraqi troops pinned down US Marines pushing towards the port of Umm Qasr for two hours before British artillery blasted the Iraqi defences open.

In the first day of fighting, one US Marine was confirmed killed in action. Eight British and four US soldiers died in a helicopter crash in Kuwait. CNN said a second Marine was killed. (Reuters)