US seizes key crossing in battle with elite troops

US TROOPS battled Republican Guard units and seized a key Euphrates River crossing yesterday after house-to-house fighting in the city of Hindiyah, some 50 miles south of Baghdad.

US and British war planes pounded the capital, striking palace compounds. Intense waves of air strikes came late last night after Iraq again warned that thousands of Arab volunteers were ready to carry out suicide attacks against coalition forces fighting to remove Saddam from power and disarm Iraq.

South of the capital, US troops massing for a decisive push toward Saddam’s seat of power yesterday reported their first serious fighting with Iraq’s crack Republican Guard at Hindiyah, just 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Baghdad. US officers said 200 Iraqis were killed, wounded or captured in the clashes which broke out overnight against the Republican Guard, considered Saddam’s most formidable military unit and key to the defence of Baghdad.

Reports of the battle around Hindiyah came as US armoured units finalised plans for a decisive thrust toward Baghdad within a week, commanders said, with forces concentrated near Najaf, 150km (95 miles) to the south.

British forces attacked the outskirts of the port city of Basra in southern Iraq, seen as crucial to the coalition’s efforts to control the region, but said they were waiting for reinforcements before making a final push.

Coalition war planes battered Baghdad and its southern outskirts for the 12th straight day, with two missiles crashing into Saddam’s sprawling Republican Palace compound, the first such strike in broad daylight.

Hospital sources said coalition bombing of a residential neighbourhood in the capital left six Iraqi civilians dead and dozens more wounded.

Residents of a village on the southeast edge of Baghdad said yesterday that 20 people, including 11 children, were killed and 10 other hurt at the weekend during a nighttime missile attack on a farm.

Workers for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned that water supplies in Basra, home to 1.2 million people, were dangerously low.

Further north, US marines opened new supply routes for thousands of troops dug in south of Al Kut, about 150km southeast of Baghdad, amid dogged resistance from Iraqi fighters defending the approach to the capital.

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf said yesterday his country’s forces had killed 43 US and British soldiers in 36 hours.

Later, an Iraqi military spokesman said at least 54 US and British soldiers had been killed in fighting in the previous 24 hours, most of them around Basra, with an unspecified number of others killed in other parts of Iraq. The latest official toll from US and British military sources put the death toll at 25 British and at least 39 US soldiers killed since the start of the war on March 20.

Three US troops were wounded yesterday, one seriously, after Iraqi soldiers used a Red Crescent ambulance to stage an attack at a town north of Nassiriya, southern Iraq.

Amid the escalation in fighting, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri accused coalition forces of trying to colonise and “partition” Iraq, demanding their immediate withdrawal from the country. Mr Sabri reiterated that some 5,000 Arab volunteers were ready to commit suicide attacks against coalition troops.