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Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

WASHINGTON - U.S. troops have found a suspected chemical factory in Iraq and officials were trying to determine late Sunday whether it was involved in making chemical weapons, U.S. officials said. The plant is near the city of An Najaf, which U.S. troops reached Sunday on a push to Baghdad, the officials said. President Bush and other U.S. officials say ridding Saddam Hussein's regime of chemical and biological weapons is the main objective of the war. Saddam's government denies it has any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or programs to produce them. Asked at a news conference in Qatar Sunday...

Two 4,700-Pound Bombs Hit Baghdad Tower By DAVID CRARY .c The Associated Press The biggest bombs dropped on Baghdad so far - two 4,700-pound ``bunker busters'' - struck a communications tower Friday in an intense U.S. bombardment. Four U.S. Marines were missing after fierce fighting in Nasiriyah. U.S. and Iraqi forces traded tank and artillery fire throughout the day in Nasiriyah, a strategic southern city that has been the scene of some of the toughest fighting of the war. Several buildings, including a power plant, were ablaze. Nasiriyah, a city of about 500,000 on the Euphrates River near a junction...

Looking to Baghdad: Troops close on capital Iraqis say allies will pay high price if they storm the city03/28/2003 Associated Press The biggest bombs dropped on Baghdad so far – two 4,700-pound "bunker busters" – struck a communications tower Friday in an intense U.S. bombardment. In the south, British officers said Iraqi fighters defending the besieged city of Basra fired on hundreds of civilians trying to flee. The British, who have encircled Basra, said their troops were prepared to rescue and aid any civilians wounded by the mortar and machine-gun fire from paramilitaries loyal to Saddam Hussein. "Here perhaps are...

'Bunker Busters' Strike Baghdad Tower By DAVID CRARY .c The Associated Press The biggest bombs dropped on Baghdad so far - two 4,700-pound ``bunker busters'' - struck a communications tower Friday in an intense U.S. bombardment. In the south, British officers said Iraqi fighters defending the besieged city of Basra fired on hundreds of civilians trying to flee. U.S. Marines and Iraqi forces traded tank and artillery fire throughout the day in the strategic southern city of An Nasiriyah, one of the areas where resistance has been unexpectedly tough. Several buildings, including the power plant, were ablaze. An Nasiriyah, a...