British incursion in al-Basra; Baghdad is facing besiege
Iraq-USA, Politics, 4/7/2003

In the 19th day of the war against Iraq, atmospheres of preparations to resist the US forces that are seeking to tighten their seige on Baghdad has been prevailing.

Armed military presence was noticed in all Baghdad's quarters, while the streets were empty form citizens and the population stayed at their houses with the continuous violent fighting which took place, according to American announcement, along the two past days at the southern and southern east of the capital. The Iraqi civilians are facing forms of daily terror as a result of the aggression, as hospitals in Baghdad are no longer able to receive wounded people with 100 wounded persons admitted to hospital per hour, most of them exposed to strong wounds.

Despite the Iraqi denial, the Americans confirmed they have controlled Saddam Hussein's International Airport where the first American military planes landed yesterday.

US army generals yesterday stressed their forces were deployed in the downtown of Kerbala following violent battle started on Saturday and still continuous with Fedayee Saddam, while the situation in al-Najaf is "settled " despite the fact there are " resistance pockets," while the British forces carried out the largest incursion operation in the city of al-Basra since besieging it since two weeks in a measure which resulted in killing three British soldiers.

Thereby the Americans are seeking to confirm that all routes of southern Iraq have become secure for the move of their weapons at a time when a statement by the Iraqi national congress said that "700 fighters" of the so- called the "liberals Iraqis" (al-Iraqeen al-Ahrar) moved to southern Iraq and started deployment near al-Nasereyah to help the invading forces in its campaign against the Iraqi regime.

The statement said that the leading figure Ahmad al-Jalabi called, from al-Nasereyah, on the people to take part in "toppling the remains of the Baathist regime of Saddam." In the north, news reports are still talking about a progress for the Kurdish forces to positions the Iraqi army redeployed its forces in, while the American military leadership admitted that two of its planes bombarded "mistakenly" a caravan of cars which were carrying fighters from the Kurdish Bashmarka and American soldiers in Deibaka area where they were launching fierce fighting with the Iraqi resistance. Despite the contradictory news on the number of the killed Americans ( between one to 12 killings ), it was assured that 17 armed Kurds were killed and more other 45 wounded including Kurdish officials.

At a time when the US and Russia seek to reach an formula agreement on Iraq after weeks of tension in the relations because of this issue, the incident of attacking the procession of the Russian ambassador yesterday upon leaving Baghdad for Syria, has added to atmosphere of unease on the meetings of the advisor for the US President's advisor for national security with the Russian officials in Moscow.

This incident which angered the Kremlin, pushed the US secretary of state Colin Powell to phone his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov to assure him that investigations are continuous in this regard.

On the wake of the meeting to be held today at the UN Security Council to discuss the situation in Iraq, the US under defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz talked frankly about a long American occupation for Iraq, and did not rule to be similar to the American military presence which continued in Germany since the second world war, and thereby violating several "assurances" attempt made by the British and American media that the coalition forces will leave Iraq quickly and stressed that Washington will play a key role after it and not the UN.

Previous Stories:
  US presentation of the status of the military attack of Iraq   (4/4/2003)
  Shiite figures ban dealing with occupation; clashes around Basra; Baghdad's battle starts with a massacre   (4/4/2003)
  30 Iraqi children, 215 wounded in Red Crescent hospital bombing; contradictory news   (4/3/2003)
  British press: land attack against Baghdad within 48 hours   (4/3/2003)

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