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British soldiers searching Iraqis at gunpoint in southern Iraq on Sunday. (Photo: Reuters) |
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Iraqis watching a British tank destroy the Ba'ath party HQ in a Basra suburb Sunday. (Photo: Reuters) |
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A Marine UH-1 Huey helicopter crashed at a forward supply and refueling point in southern Iraq, killing three servicement aboard, the U.S. military said.
The cause of the 1730 GMT crash was unclear, although Central Command spokeswoman Captain Dani Burrows said Iraqi fire was not involved. An additional soldier was wounded, said a spokesman in Kuwait.
Only four people were believed to be aboard the helicopter, which had been taking off on a support mission.
U.S says destroyed possible Al Qaida base in north Iraq
The United States said on Sunday that U.S.-led forces had destroyed "a massive terrorist facility" in northern Iraq which could have been used by Al Qaida to make chemical weapons.
The head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, told CNN the site in northeast Iraq could have been a training ground and may have produced the lethal poison ricin that was found in a London flat in January.
"We attacked and now have gone in on the ground into a site in northeast Iraq where Ansar al-Islam and Al Qaida had been working on poisons," Myers said.
"It's from this site where people were trained and where poisons were developed that migrated into Europe. We think that's probably where the ricin found in London probably came."
Myers said the targeted site was a "large complex with lots of underground pieces, tunnels and so forth" and could take up to a week to investigate properly.
"It's an area that was struck from the air. We had AC-130 gunships up there trying to take care of the target before the folks on the ground went in," he added.
"Some of the bodies that have been recovered, enemy bodies that have been recovered up there, are not Iraqis, they're not Iranians. We don't know for sure, but they're most likely Al Qaida."
British soldier killed near Basra
A British soldier has been killed in action near the southern Iraqi city of Basra, a Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said on Sunday.
The death takes the number of British casualties in the 11-day conflict to 24. Five have been killed in action, 14 in accidents and five in so-called "friendly fire" incidents.
Allied aerial pummelling of Baghdad continues
A residential area in the centre of Baghdad was struck by a missile as the heavy U.S. bombardment of the city continued, Arabic television broadcaster al-Jazeera reported on Sunday.
According to the report, the missile struck the well-off neighbourhood of Inner Karrada, causing deaths and injuries.
The U.S. military said Sunday that it bombed the main training site for Iraqi Fedayeen paramilitary forces, a presidential palace, intelligence complex and surface-to-air missile sites in "key" strikes on Baghdad. Later Sunday morning, Britain said there were new clashes south of Basra, and three explosions were heard on the outskirts of Baghdad.
But while coalition forces have begun bombing Baghdad from the air, some American troops said Sunday that they were told the land advance toward the capital could pause for weeks, confirming what U.S. military sources in central Iraq said Saturday. Following Saturday's report, the U.S. Central Command had said that there would be no "pause" in military operations to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that the toughest part of the war was yet to come.
The overnight bombings of Baghdad were "key" strikes, the U.S. military's Combined Forces Air Component Command said in a statement issued Sunday, adding that satellite-guided bombs targeted the main training facility of the Fedayeen paramilitary forces at about 11:30 P.M. Iraqi time on Saturday (2030 GMT).
The strike targeted the training facility's barracks in eastern Baghdad, the statement said. "The Fedayeen in this area are in charge of security functions in eastern Baghdad," it said.
U.S.-led warplanes Saturday bombed "command and control facilities" at the Abu Garayb Presidential Palace, east of the Saddam International Airfield in western Baghdad, and two facilities at the Karada Intelligence Complex, also at about 11:30 P.M. Iraqi time, the U.S. military said.
The intelligence complex on the banks of the Tigris River in southern Baghdad was used to "direct military intelligence operations and to coordinate the oppression of internal opposition," the statement said.
U.S.-led aircraft also dropped satellite-guided bombs on two surface-to-air missile complexes in eastern Baghdad at bout the same time, the U.S. military said.
"The strike enhances the security of Coalition air forces conducting missions over the capital city of Baghdad," it said.
Rumsfeld: No WMD found yet as troops have not reached area of stockpiles
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday the United States had not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because troops had not yet reached the area where they are stockpiled.
Rumsfeld said U.S. officials believed the weapons are closer to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, around which most of Iraq's covert arms production and storage historically have taken place.
Asked on the ABC "This Week" program if he was concerned the forces had yet to turn up any of the banned weapons, Rumsfeld said, "Not at all."
The U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq 11 days ago to disarm Iraq of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons it has accused Baghdad of harboring. Iraq denies having such weapons.
"The area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial," Rumsfeld said. "It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed.
"We know where they are, they are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north of that," he added. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was born in a village near Tikrit.
U.S. military chief says no pause in ground advance
U.S. Central Command chief General Tommy Franks rejected reports Sunday that there was a pause in the drive of U.S.-led forces towards Baghdad, and maintained that the war was on track.
Some U.S. troops said Sunday they had been told a pause in land advances from the south towards Baghdad could be extended by several weeks because of over-stretched supply lines and stiff Iraqi resistance.
Addressing a news conference at U.S. war headquarters in Qatar, Franks rejected suggestions of a pause in fighting: "It is simply not the case."
"Reporting that is coming from inside Iraq... would reflect that combat operations are continuing. They're continuing in the north, they're continuing in the west, they're continuing right around Baghdad."
Military officials told troops with one frontline unit south of Baghdad that the pause could last 35 to 40 days, far longer than a wait of up to six days they were warned of Saturday. The Pentagon has denied that there is any pause on the battlefield.
Franks also said that the coalition forces had destroyed what he called a "terrorist facility" in northern Iraq.
"Coalition forces have attacked and destroyed in the last 48 hours a massive terrorist facility in northern Iraq," he told reporters.
He did not name the group but Washington accuses the Ansar al-Islam group, which has several hundred mainly Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq, of working to make chemical weapons with help from the Al-Qaida network of Osama bin Laden.
Asked if the war launched 11 days ago to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could last until the summer, Franks said: "One never knows."
"We don't need to remind ourselves that the outcome has not been is not and will not be in question," he said. "Where we stand today is not only acceptable in my view, it is truly remarkable."
15 hurt as attacker rams truck into U.S. troops in Kuwait
An attacker drove a truck into a group of soldiers lined up outside a military "PX" shop at a U.S. base in Kuwait on Sunday, wounding 15 people, U.S. and Kuwaiti officials said.
Lieutenant Colonel Larry Cox, the public affairs officer at the base, said the attacker drove a white pickup truck during the incident, which occurred at around noon.
Shooting was heard at the scene and an ambulance called into the base, the Arab satellite television station Al-Jazeera reported.
But General Franks noted the attack was substantially different from a suicide car bomb attack that killed four American soldiers in Iraq on Saturday.
"It was obvious that the modus of the second attack [at Camp Udairi] was not at all like the first attack," he told reporters.