Fighting, looting continues

2003-04-10 13:47

Baghdad - US marines came under heavy fire in Baghdad on Thursday from fighters loyal to Saddam Hussein, as Iraqis ransacked the villas of the regime's leaders one day after US forces swept into the capital.

Reports of the pre-dawn clashes, which left one US soldier dead, came as a series of loud blasts rang out in Baghdad, waking the city's residents on the first day in more than two decades free of the Iraqi leader's iron-fisted rule.

World leaders cautiously welcomed the fall of Baghdad to US forces as mystery swirled around Saddam's fate, but officials in Washington warned that a coalition victory was not yet in hand.

In northern Iraq, US-backed Kurdish fighters reportedly took control of the region's oil capital of Kirkuk, according to a BBC correspondent.

Baghdad residents looted the swank mansions of deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz, Saddam's son Uday, daughter Halah, his half-brother Watban, and army generals in the Jadria and High Babel areas of the capital, an AFP correspondent reported.

Earlier, Iraqi loyalist fighters hiding in buildings, under cars, and beneath bridges attacked US Marines before dawn along the Tigris, an AFP correspondent on the ground saw.

"There were at least 13 casualties and one soldier killed in action," said US First Sergeant Jeff Treiber, adding artillery fire could be heard outside the walls of Saddam's Azmiyah palace.

Dramatic fall of Baghdad

A series of explosions were heard in the capital from 07:30 (05:30 SA time) as planes buzzed overhead, but it was not immediately clear where the blasts had occurred or if coalition planes had caused them, an AFP correspondent reported.

The incidents broke the calm that had reigned over Baghdad since US troops poured into the capital to the cheers of jubilant Iraqis on Wednesday, just three weeks after the US-led war to wrest power from Saddam began on March 20.

The dramatic fall of Baghdad - symbolised by the toppling of a giant statue of Saddam in the center of the sprawling city of five million people - capped a blistering three-week US-British military offensive.

To wild cheers and applause, US Marines used a tank recovery vehicle to help a crowd of Iraqis destroy the statue over Al-Fardus (Paradise) Square - a symbol of the repressive leader's feared, omnipresent rule.

But on Thursday, coalition forces continued to gain control over the city, with Major Pete Farnum saying a mosque on the northern banks of the Tigris - a suspected Saddam stronghold - had been secured.

A BBC correspondent said US troops had searched the mosque, where Saddam was rumored to be hiding.

In Washington, US President George W Bush welcomed the news from Baghdad, allowing himself a brief moment of exultation, saying "They got it down!" when the statue of Saddam fell, but the White House also warned that the war was not over.

"We are still in the midst of a shooting war and men and women are still in harm's way. The war is not over. There remain a lot of dangers ahead," said White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer.

A lot of fighting left

US Vice President Dick Cheney cautioned that coalition forces could yet face "hard fighting", while in London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair - Bush's staunchest ally in the war - warned that the conflict was "not over yet."

Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing that Saddam "is now taking his rightful place alongside Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Ceausescu in the pantheon of failed, brutal dictators, and the Iraqi people are well on their way to freedom."

"Watching them (topple the statue), one cannot help but think of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain," he said.

But he warned: "There is a lot of fighting that's left."

And there was still no sign of the weapons of mass destruction that Washington has accused Saddam of possessing - a claim it used to justify the invasion.

In stark contrast to the stream of defiant declarations from Iraq over the past three weeks, there was not a whisper on Wednesday.

Nothing has been heard from Saddam since a US bomber on Monday obliterated a building in Baghdad where he was believed to be with his two sons.

At the White House, Fleischer said Saddam had "missed his chance" to go peacefully into exile but admitting: "We still don't know his fate."

The only remark came from Baghdad's ambassador to the United Nations Mohammed al-Duri, who said "The game is over" -- the first senior official to concede defeat in the US-led war.

Police officials in Paris said al-Duri was flying to Paris on Thursday, but would travel on to the Netherlands.

Governments meanwhile expressed concern about Saddam's whereabouts and the continued threat of clashes.

Key role for UN?

"Let's not break open the champagne and celebrate at this stage, there's still a way to go yet," said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, whose country has contributed troops to the coalition.

In Paris, French President Jacques Chirac, who has been one of the strongest opponents of the war, hailed the crumbling of Saddam's regime, saying he hoped the fighting would end soon.

China urged a key role for the United Nations in the postwar reconstruction of Iraq, a position also favored by Paris.

Elsewhere in Iraq, the BBC reported that coalition-backed Kurdish forces had captured the northern oil city of Kirkuk, with correspondent Dumeeth Luthra saying: "It seems like Kirkuk has fallen.

Earlier, Kurdish sources said their forces had seized two towns, Makhmur and Altun Kubri, on the road to Kirkuk.

US forces continued to move north towards Tikrit, Saddam's home town which lies 200km north of Baghdad, a US military spokesperson said.

In the southern city of Basra, largely under British control since Monday, British troops were struggling to contain rampant looting, murders and petty crime, but said they hoped to restore order in a few days.

Relief supplies already arriving

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, US secretary of state Colin Powell said Washington would seek a series of UN resolutions endorsing a future Iraqi government, sales of Iraqi oil and humanitarian aid.

Top aid groups asked the UN security council on Wednesday to guarantee their safe passage into Iraq to help those in need of humanitarian assistance, but Rumsfeld said relief supplies were already arriving at Baghdad airport.

The International Committee of the Red Cross temporarily suspended aid deliveries after one of its Canadian workers was killed in crossfire.

Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi meanwhile complained the team chosen by the United States to administer post-Saddam Iraq was too slow in arriving.

But Rumsfeld countered that interim administrator Jay Garner, a retired US general, would not move into Baghdad until he and his team could do so safely.

- AFX