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Intense
bombardments and bloody combat
• Baghdad
neighborhoods stormed • Confusing information on
ground assault by aggressors
WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD
.— Despite statements from the U.S. Central
Command on the alleged success of ground actions in
Baghdad and other cities by the Anglo-American
forces, all that is clear is their continued
indiscriminate and even more intensive bombing of
the capital and other major Iraqi cities with
medium-range Tomahawk planes and missiles, in an
effort to bring resistance in those urban centers to
its knees.
 Bloody
combat has been reported in areas surrounding
Baghdad International Airport, situated some 20
kilometers southeast of the capital. During the
siege, U.S. tanks stormed Furat, a village located
between the airport and the capital, killing 83
people and wounding 120, mostly civilians, according
to various press agencies and TV networks.
The
Iraqi Central Command affirmed that five U.S. tanks
and one helicopter had been captured, and refuted
the definitive taking of the airport widely reported
by the U.S. TV networks. According to Reuters, large
sections of the airport remain in Iraqi hands.
Meanwhile, Baghdad continued to be the target of
further bombings.
The
Iraqi capital had a total blackout for the first
time since the attacks began on March 20.
Bombardments continued during all of yesterday and
into the hours of Friday morning. An incursion into
a residential area of Baghdad, where a market was
hit, produced 41 dead and more than 300 wounded. In
that context, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
announced that those families who have lost
relatives or their homes as a consequence of the war
will be compensated.
The
area north of Baghdad was also subjected to a fierce
wave of bombings, considered one of the most intense
campaigns against the capital thus far, according to
an EFE correspondent.
Since
Thursday, Basra, some 500 kilometers southeast of
Baghdad, has been attacked night and day by British
troops who have has the city surrounded since the
beginning of the offensive. Reuters pointed out that
for the first time, a British special unit was able
to penetrate one of the neighborhoods despite very
strong resistance.
British
special forces are also trying to contain fires in
oil wells set ablaze by the bombings.
Although
the U.S. Central Command claimed that its troops
were advancing on Baghdad, EFE reported that there
was no evidence of a foreign military presence on
the highway between the capital and Karbala, nor has
there been any combat in its environs.
There
have been reports of fierce fighting in the central
Iraqi cities of Al Kut, and An Najaf, 160 kilometers
south of Baghdad, where U.S. military sources
admitted finding nine bodies of their soldiers
ambushed by the Iraqi forces.
In the
north, the 10-kilometer advance by Kurdish
separatists supported by U.S. special forces was
contained by Iraqi soldiers armed with light weapons
and artillery defending a command post in Khazer, on
the highway towards Mosul, an important city also
bombed by coalition planes.
On the
political plane, U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell reiterated at a NATO and European Union
meeting in Brussels that the coalition will have a
leading role in the definition of the stage
subsequent to the government to be imposed on the
Arab country. He confirmed that the UN will have a
place in the postwar period, but stated that the
nature of its participation has yet to be decided in
Washington, EFE comments.
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