Speaking of surprise. Breaking News excerpt, full detail on post #88 . . .
Powerful blasts rock Baghdad
03/27/2003
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Massive explosions rocked central Baghdad late Thursday night, sending a towering plume of smoke skyward in the strongest blasts felt in the city in days.
Shortly after 11 p.m. in Baghdad (2 p.m. CST), explosions shook the capital near the city center. Buildings close to the Information Ministry appeared to have been hit, sending a huge plume of smoke skyward.
Earlier Thursday, Iraq's defense minister said the real battle for Baghdad will be on its streets, and that Saddam Hussein's regime will prolong the war as long as possible.
"The enemy must come inside Baghdad, and that will be its grave," said Defense Minister Sultan Hashem Ahmed.
"We feel that this war must be prolonged so the enemy pays a high price," he said at a news conference at a downtown Baghdad hotel.
Asked whether the fighting in Baghdad will be on the streets, Mr. Ahmed replied, "Yes."
He called the two-day sandstorm that engulfed Iraq this week and slowed the U.S.-led coalition "a divine gift to tell the aggressor that he is an aggressor."
President Bush said Thursday the United States was prepared to fight "however long it takes."
The Iraqi health minister said 36 civilians were killed and 215 wounded in U.S. airstrikes on Baghdad a day earlier, and he accused U.S.-led forces of deliberately targeting civilians to break the people's will.
Loud explosions were heard in and around Baghdad again Thursday, and witnesses said an unknown number of people were killed and injured when a housing complex for employees of a weapons-producing facility came under attack. The Military Industrialization Authority of Iraq complex is in the Al-Youssifiah area, about 12 miles south of the capital.
Another blast about 700 yards west of the Information Ministry, possibly from a missile, sent scores of journalists fleeing. Anti-aircraft guns on the roof of the ministry opened fire, witnesses said, but there was no immediate information on damage or casualties.
One of Baghdad's main telephone facilities also was hit early Thursday, causing some disruptions in service.