Blue skies bring more bombs to battered city

THE people of Baghdad knew a punishing attack was coming after a two-day sandstorm that grounded many coalition warplanes gave way to blue skies.

Powerful explosions continued through the night and after the sun rose yesterday morning, with aircraft swooping low over the city. Anti-aircraft fire was intermittent.

Grey smoke drifted across the capital from the bombings and from fires started by authorities to conceal targets. Police and ambulance sirens wailed.

Thick orange smoke hung in the air after B-2 stealth bombers dropped munitions including two 4,700lb bunker-busting bombs on a communications towers on the banks of the River Tigris.

Hours before the bombardment, Iraq’s defence minister was defiant, insisting the real battle for Baghdad will be a drawn-out fight in the streets of the city of five million.

“The enemy must come inside Baghdad, and that will be its grave,” Sultan Hashim Ahmed said. “We feel that this war must be prolonged so the enemy pays a high price.”

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested US troops might lay siege to Baghdad rather than invade, in hopes its citizens will rise up against the government.

Iraq’s satellite television channel was cutting in and out after the air strikes but telephones were working in many parts of the city yesterday.

In northern Iraq, the Mosul area was also targeted by strikes on Thursday night.

In the south, British officers said Iraqi fighters defending the besieged city of Basra fired on hundreds of civilians trying to flee.