US
AND BRITISH LAUNCHED THIRD, MASSIVE ATTACK ON IRAQ
By Safa Haeri
LONDON 21 Mar. (IPS)
American and British forces launched Thursday evening a third,
“massive” wave of attacks on the Capital Baghdad, as U.S. units from the 1st
Marine Expeditionary Forces moving into Iraq from the southeastern border with
Kuwait, clashed with Iraqi troops along the border, Pentagon sources said.
A senior American Defence
official said the attacks on Baghdad included sea-launched Cruise missiles fired
at the Republican Guards strongholds and at least one of Saddam’s palaces was
also hit.
Iraqi television
reported 72 missiles have hit the city and four Iraqi soldiers have been killed.
The air strikes set ablaze
at least two buildings, including one that houses the offices of Deputy Prime
Minister Tariq Aziz and other government officials.
In his first address to
the nation, British embattled Prime Minister Tony Blair said the aim of
the ongoing military operation was to “save the world” from the menace the
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hoseyn present.
The entry from neighbouring emirate of Kuwait was preceded by a thunderous aerial and artillery bombardment of Iraqi positions by U.S. and British forces Thursday night that felt "like an earthquake", correspondents in Baghdad reported.
At the same time,
British troops occupied the small port of Um al Qasr, few kilometres south of
Basra and the Al Faw Peninsula, on the junction of Persian Gulf waters and the
Shat el Arab river that is the border with Iran.
Iran’s official news
agency IRNA quoted “informed sources” from the Tehran-based Supreme
Assembly of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SAIRI) that British and American
forces were “now one kilometer from the city-port of Basra.
Iraqi television early
Friday said among the targets hit by coalition strikes were a military site in
the southern town of Basra and another target in Akashat, a town about
300 miles west of Baghdad near the Syrian border.
The missiles were launched from U.S. Navy ships and submarines in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf and -- for the first time -- from two British submarines.
Seven aircraft from the
USS Abraham Lincoln also dropped bombs Thursday over Iraq aimed at targets U.S.
officials deem to be a threat, military officials said, adding that attacks
would continue throughout the day.
The series of strikes came
several hours after a "decapitation attack" aimed at Iraqi President
and his leadership and paved the way for a full-fledged attack and ground
invasion, U.S. officials said.
U.S. military officials
confirmed oil wells were burning in southern Iraq near the Kuwaiti border.
Donald Rumsfeld, the hawkish Defence Secretary said Pentagon had reports Iraqi
forces had set "as many as three or four" wells ablaze in the southern
part of the country.
In other developments in
regard to the Iraqi crisis, most of the nations opposed to the American-led war
regretted the attack, but said the international community must now think about
the future of the oil-rich, but impoverished Iraq by helping the Iraqis to
rebuild their nation;
• The United States asked governments around the
world to expel all Iraqi ambassadors and to temporarily suspend embassy services
at Iraqi embassies, in an effort to “delegitimise” Saddam's regime and
prepare the diplomatic groundwork for a new Iraqi government.
• The Turkish parliament voted Thursday to let U.S.
warplanes use Turkey's airspace to launch strikes against Iraq and to allow the
Turkish military to enter northern Iraq. ENDS NEW ATTACKS ON IRAQ 21303