Up to 3,000 troops killed in Baghdad, says US

UP to 3,000 Iraqi fighters were killed in a show-of-force foray into Baghdad

In southern Iraq, British forces made their deepest push yet into Basra, with a column of 40 armoured personnel carriers rolling into the country’s second-biggest city after a series of strikes on Saddam Hussein’s loyalist defenders.

Though Saturday’s 25-mile incursion through an industrial section of southern Baghdad was brief, it inflicted a heavy toll, according to command spokesman Jim Wilkinson. More than three-dozen tanks and armoured vehicles were involved. US casualties were described as light.

The blitz took two task forces of the Third Infantry Division from the southern outskirts of the city past Baghdad University and near the banks of the Tigris River, then back to the western outskirts to the airport, which is under US control.

US Central Command said the estimated toll of 2,000 to 3,000 deaths referred to fighters only. Later, asked at a news briefing to explain how the number was calculated, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks gave no specifics, but said it was a reasonable estimate based on the resistance US column encountered from Republican Guard units and militiamen and the weaponry used in response.

“We know it was a considerable amount of destruction,” he said. “In virtually every engagement we have, it’s very one-sided.”

US officials made clear that forays into Baghdad would continue.

“It’s important to do so to secure the area. It’s also important that we do that for psychological reasons,” Mr Wilkinson said. “Frankly, we’ve had to prove to the civilians in the north and the south that we’re there to stay. Once they know we’re there to stay, they celebrate.”

US forces have formed a loose circle around Baghdad, seeking to isolate it and block movement of Iraqi troops.

US pressure in and around Baghdad intensified yesterday. A Marine battalion overran a Republican Guard headquarters and seized one of Saddam’s palaces south of the city.

Iraqi state television broadcast a statement attributed to Saddam, urging soldiers separated from their units to join any unit they could locate.

Capitalising on their dominance of the skies, US commanders began

deploying planes over Baghdad 24 hours a day, co-ordinating precision strikes in support of upcoming ground attacks Iraqi authorities took Baghdad-based journalists to the city’s southern outskirts yesterday to show them a US tank destroyed in the

fighting.

A commander said four more tanks also were destroyed but had been towed away to clear the road.

Along the Tigris River, 20 miles southeast of Baghdad, Marines overran the headquarters of the Republican Guard’s Second Corps, seized one of Saddam’s palaces and destroyed what US intelligence reports depicted as a terrorist training camp.