Conflicting reports on capture of key city

COALITION sources claimed last night that Iraq’s second largest city had finally been secured, but Iraqi forces were believed to be still resisting coalition forces.

US and British tank units advanced on Basra yesterday, where Iraqi forces fought back to keep them out of the city.

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said three US soldiers had been killed in the fighting for Basra as well as 77 civilians, most of the latter with cluster bombs. There was no independent confirmation troops had died in Basra.

One military official said about 30 Iraqi soldiers were holding out in one area of Basra. “We’re hearing there’s isolated pockets of resistance,” the official said.

A British defence source in London told Reuters that US-led forces did not want to get bogged down in Basra, but wanted to push for Baghdad last night or today. “The important thing is not to take Basra, but to get through it and get to the north. We won’t get into fighting in downtown Basra,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Medics with US Marine units said they had treated six Iraqis wounded in fighting or bombing around Basra, one of whom had since died of a bullet wound.

Information Minister Sahaf told a news conference in Baghdad Iraqi forces had US troops on the run.

“In south Basra the Americans tried to move one of their columns from the airport to another civilian quarter. Iraqi fighters confronted them, destroyed four tanks, and killed three of their mercenaries,” he said. “They ran like rats. Did you see what those criminals did in Basra when they used the cluster bombs? Seventy-seven people were martyred and 366 were injured from these banned weapons.”

A 24-year-old engineer for Iraq’s South Oil Company who fled Basra on Saturday and who gave his name only as Hussein said: “There is fighting in the centre, on the streets. It is terrible.”

Several dozen people fleeing Basra passed a checkpoint asking how to get to Kuwait, but trucks of tomatoes, vegetables and water were travelling toward the city.