ALL OUT ATTACK ON IRAQ STARTED

LONDON 21 Mar. (IPS)    As Baghdad came under a new, unprecedented wave of bombardment and British-US forces reported to moving near the southern city of Basra, sources close to the Tehran-based Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SAIRI) said their forces were "ready to enter Iraq tonight".

According to IRNA, SAIRI's leader, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer Hakim met Friday with British Ambassador to Tehran Richard Dalton. In the meeting, the two sides reviewed the latest developments in Iraq following the US and British attack on Iraq

Correspondents in the region said British and American forces had launched an "all-out attack on Iraq, including "massive raids" on Baghdad, where at least three waves of missiles hit targets in the city.Smoke rises over Baghdad on Friday evening at about 9 p.m. local time (1 p.m. EST), amid a barrage of airstrikes.

"I had seen anything like these raids", a correspondent for the Sky News reported, saying there should be many causalities.

Donald Rumsfeld, the hawkish US Defence Secretary, confirming the start of the "all out attack", assured Friday evening London time that "this regime" (of Saddam Hoseyn) was "finished" and assured that the aim of the US-British-led war was to topple the Iraqi dictator, "eradicate" terrorism, destroy "once for all" weapons of mass destruction and help the Iraqis to install their own regime, restoring freedom, democracy and respect of laws and human rights.

Television broadcast monitored in London shows huge explosions in several places in the Iraqi Capital, as US forces have reportedly started moving to Kurdish inhabitant city of Zakhu in northern Iraq via Turkey.

Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Socialist Party envoy in Tehran Sheikh Taher Barzanji told the official Iranian news agency IRNA on Friday that the US troops are arriving in Zakhu aboard military helicopters. 

Fox News reported on Friday that at least some 250 Iraqi soldiers had surrendered themselves to coalition forces in Umm Qasr, the small port captured earlier by British forces. American troops had reportedly occupied the strategic peninsula of Faw. The report was denied by Iraq. ENDS ALL OUT ATTACK ON IRAQ 21303