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As technically vastly superior and soon to be further reinforced US-led coalition forces reach the vicinity of Baghdad, poised for the final push on the Iraqi capital, the question posed in the headline may seem little more than rhetorical. It is not. Consider why Saddam Hussein made the decision to stay in Iraq and fight in the first place; consider what - in his mind - might constitute victory even as most of his country is occupied by enemy forces. For answers, first turn to Saddam's war plan as evidenced by developments so far and the mode of conduct of...

Of all the scenarios predicted for the climactic siege of Baghdad, when and if it comes, perhaps the most chilling is the prediction by some military analysts that a beleagured President Saddam Hussein will throw child soldiers into the battle, thereby confronting coalition soldiers with a terrible dilemma. Such predictions might sound far-fetched but, if realised, would not set a precedent. People under the age of 18 have been forced to fight in 33 ongoing or recent conflicts and four of the countries responsible for press-ganging them into service are within Asean, notably governments and rebel factions in Cambodia, Burma,...

THE images on the TV screen are as repulsive as they are visually addictive. Baghdad is a kaleidoscope of fireballs, red AA tracers and missile vapour trails, pillars of fire in America's lethal Star Wars ballet of mass death. Technology rains death on Baghdad in Saddam's last Umm Al Maarik, the mother of all battles. Yet this is nothing new for Baghdad, a city besieged and bloodied by some of the most pitiless conquerors of history. Halaku Khan, the grandson of Chenghiz, the Mongol Khan had his horsemen slaughter the last Abbasid caliph. He turned Mesopotamia's fabled Garden of Eden...

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Riyadh Daily (Internet Version-WWW) in English 27 Mar 03 [Commentary by, deputy editor-in-chief: "Operation 'Liberation Cat'"] THREE weeks ago, a pregnant cat entered our back balcony to give birth to five kittens. We tolerated the situation with sympathy, knowing that we live in an urban compound filled with huge and monstrous stray killer cats ready to eat anything that moved except mice. On the first night, my wife woke up to the noises of a fierce cat fight. She chased away a huge and monsterous ugly-looking male cat which had made his way to the balcony, mowed...

TEHRAN, 27 Mar (KUNA) -- The Iraqi regime forces have diverted the water of the Tigris river into nearby plains to curb the advance of coalition forces in southern Iraq, Iraqi opposition sources said. The sources told KUNA that large quantities of water have already been spilled into the nearby level lands. Meanwhile, the coalition forces have been speeding their advance towards the city of Amara as helicopters started as of yesterday the transport of troops and vehicles into that region.

AMMAN - His wisp of a mustache and the pimple near his nose speak of a maturity not quite realized, but the even strength of his brown-eyed gaze speaks of a realization not far off. The boy spoke no English, but as his words were translated for my benefit, his gaze never left mine - he wanted to tell his story, he wanted it understood. His name is Hamad, he said. He is 18 years old. He is Iraqi. He is an exile. But not for long. And he is not alone. Hamad is one of thousands of exiles living...

Nasiriya, (Special to Iraq Press), March 28, 2003 ? U.S. missile and aerial bombing have taken a heavy toll on the paramilitary troops in major cities in southern Iraq. Iraq Press correspondents say the bombing has reduced several buildings housing members of the militia force known as Saddam Fedayeen to rubble. They also said the ruling Baath party offices and headquarters in Basra, Nasiriya, Najaf and even Baghdad have been targets of U.S. bombs and missiles. "Saddam's grip is loosening in major cities in southern Iraq and his loyalists are in acute distress," one correspondent said. The nearly 25,000 fedayeen...

Syria is granting free passage across its border with Iraq to volunteers who wish to join the fight against the U.S. and British forces. Thus far, dozens of volunteers, primarily Palestinians from the refugee camps in Lebanon, have crossed over into Iraq through Syrian-controlled border posts. The passage of volunteers with Damascus's consent has given rise to the theory that the U.S.-fired missile that struck a Syrian bus traveling in Iraq was an intentional attack on a busload of such volunteers. The bus left Damascus on Sunday and was hit by the missile some 50 kilometers inside Iraqi territory. The...

Doha, Qatar: Al-Jazirah Satellite Channel Television in Arabic -- Independent Television station financed by the Qatari Government, at 1115 GMT on 27 March carries a live telephone interview with correspondent Muhammad al-Abdallah in Basra. Asked about the current situation in the city, Al-Abdallah says: "The situation can be described as quiet now after the early hours of the morning, when positions in northern Basra came under missile and air bombardment. Basra City was the target of air raids last night. Government buildings were hit, including the governor's offices and the South Oil Company. The bombardment destroyed most of the governor's...

As the Iraqi war moves into its eighth day, what is most extraordinary are the absurd and unrealistic expectations that people have had of it. That goes not only for public opinion, the media and politicians in the US, but also for armchair pundits across the world. Regardless of which side people support, if indeed they support either, they have apparently been astonished by Iraq's resistance and the battering the Americans and British have taken. Even those who support Saddam Hussein never really expected the war to be anything but clinical and short. They, too, thought that Iraqi cities would...

Al-Sulaymaniyah, Iraq: The chairmanship of the [Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, PUK-led, Iraqi] Kurdistan regional government has issued a general amnesty to the misguided Kurds in the ranks of the terrorist Ansar al-Islam. The general amnesty statement said: After the malevolent intentions of the servants of the dictatorial Aflaqi authority, the killer of the Kurds, and the lowly slaves of the terrorist al-Qa'ida band has been exposed, what they [Ansar al-Islam] perpetrate against the masses can be described as nothing but treachery, murder and assault against the Kurds; subservience to the foreigner; perpetration of savage crime; and blatant breach of the...

United States Plans Nuclear Strike Moscow, Russia: Some time ago a rather strange report was issued around the world. The CBS news agency, citing sources within the US leadership, reported that Saddam Husayn's Republican Guard had received the order to use chemical weapons against allied troops in the event of their entering Baghdad. The appearance of such information seems strange if only because not long before this all facilities on Iraqi territory connected to any degree with chemicals were thoroughly investigated by the UN commission. It is clear that no traces of weapons of mass destruction or of their production...

[Unattributed report: "Following the martyrdom operation of Anab, the crusaders' B-52 warplanes, intensify their bombardment, using fragmentation and smart bombs"] Following the success of the martyring operation in Anab, which caused significant and heavy damage to the forces of crusaders and apostates, they were forced to hide their losses and prevent journalists and correspondents of satellite TV channels to go to the area. Adding to that, they strongly threatened the media channels that if they reported this operation of Ansar [al-Islam, Kurdish: Pishtiwanani Islam la Kurdistan, PIK], they would be arrested like [the correspondent of] Al-Jazirah, or expelled. As vengeance...

UMM QASR, 27 March 2003 - A day after US/UK forces entered the residential area of this small town, with a population of 45,000, local Iraqis here told Arab News that they are still hungry and thirsty. And as night fell machine-gun fire and mortar shells could be heard in the surrounding areas, suggesting that US/UK troops still have not "secured" the deep port as the Western media has reported. The only food and rations getting to the people are coming to Safwan, some 17 kilometers away from the port on the Kuwait-Iraq border. They are being delivered by the...

Cairo, Egypt: The wall of fear has now crumbled. The United States is no longer as terrifying as we thought it was. We are no longer as weak as others thought we were. The fact is that our force is great, but our stupidity is greater because we always differ. Fear has crumbled and we have regained our self-confidence thanks to Iraq and the Iraqi people's struggle. The Iraqis have downed warplanes and helicopters and burned the enemy's tanks and armored vehicles. They have captured invading pilots and soldiers and killed many of them, as the enemy's military command has...

JEDDAH, 25 March 2003 - The decades of suffering by the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation, the war in Kosovo and now the attack on Iraq " these and many other armed conflicts raise the issue of human rights in wartime. After World War II, guidelines were set to protect the lives of innocent civilians at times of conflict and define the rights of all human beings at all times and everywhere. These guidelines were articulated by the countries that won the war and that had recently relinquished their control, grudgingly, over the countries they colonized for centuries. The concepts...

Arbil, Iraq Press, March 26, 2003 ? Members of the dreaded militia force known as Saddam Fedayeen now have orders to kill any Iraqi on the spot if he refuses to fight the advancing U.S. and British forces. The commando force is the most dreaded in Iraq and its powers and privileges even exceed those of the elite forces of the Republican Guard. They are present in major cities and operate in small groups. Their tasks include maintaining order in residential areas and using maximum force to quell any sign of dissent. They are also equipped with rocket propelled grenades,...

Mujahid leader President Saddam Husayn, may God watch over him, has addressed a letter to Saddam's heroic Fedayeen. Following is the text of the letter: In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate. And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God. [Koranic verse] To the men who carried the banner of jihad, which also carries our name. To Saddam's Fedayeen. Brothers and dear sons, led by your brother Uday, peace be upon you. The fedayeen had wished to meet the enemy to destroy it. The enemy has...

I will tell you an old story, but it is similar to events today. This story is on the occasion of the war. It is about telling lies. The party to this story is Iraq. In the mid 1980s, Iraq lost one of its battles with Iran for a strategic island in the Gulf. International newspapers reported that the island was captured by the Iranians. The Iraqi authorities dismissed this report. They persisted in fabricating their story. Therefore, they invited a group of Arab journalists to see the island. They took the journalists on board a helicopter to see the...

DOHA: A prominent Doha-based Iraqi Shi'ite scholar says a fatwa issued by their imam in Najaf asking the community to fight the allied forces has united their sect and the Sunnis back home. In remarks to The Peninsula yesterday, the scholar, who teaches Arabic in a school in Doha, claimed that the fatwa might have prompted a peasant near Karbala to hit a US war helicopter with an old rifle (known as burno in local parlance) recently. Asking not to be identified, the scholar, who hails from the war-ravaged south-eastern city of Basra, said an Iraqi Shi'ite dare not defy...