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Latest developments relating to Iraqi War - Iraq Missiles Hit Kuwait
2003-03-29 09:50:43U S behind Kuwait Missile Attacks - to create anti Iraqi Sentiment in the Arab World - US is lying about Iraqi Missile Attacks in Kuwait, say residents.
Iraqi Women Soldiers preparing to enter the battlefield
BAGHDAD, March 29 -- The US-British forces launched a new round of attacks on Iraq Friday evening through Saturday, a building in the main presidential palace in central Baghdad was hit in air raids overnight. Al Jazeera TV reported early Saturday that the Iraqi Information Ministry in central Baghdad was hit during the bombing attack. Iraqi forces launched anti-aircraft batteries on coalition warplanes. The air strike came as part of a new wave of US-led coalition warplanes bombardment beginning at around 11:45 p.m. (2045 GMT) on Friday. Witnesses said they heard at least three big blasts followed by another five coming from the US forces.
Earlier in the day, at least 53 people were killed and 47 others injured in coalition's bombings on a market in Baghdad. Baghdad has been under devastating bombings over the past nine days since the outbreak of the war. On Friday night, explosions also rocked the southern outskirts of Baghdad during the new wave of US air strike on the Iraqi capital. Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahaf strongly accused the US-led coalition of using cluster bombs on Iraqi civilians. He said a total of 26 Iraqis were killed and 60 others injured during the overnight bombings on the central city of Najaf, and seven were killed and 92 others injured overnight in Baghdad.
Some 116 people have been killed and 695 injured in the southern city of Basra since the beginning of the war, he said, adding in the southern province of Thi Qar, 230 people have been killed and 800 injured.
Chief of Staff of the Kitty Hawk battle group Captain Dick Corpus said Friday that the US Navy has launched about 650 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Iraq since the US-led war on Iraq broke out on March 20. He said the three aircraft carriers battle groups deployed in the Gulf -- the Kitty Hawk, Abraham Lincoln andConstellation -- have flown 1,300 sorties since the beginning of the military action. On Friday alone, the three battle groups flew 190 sorties, 47 of them from the Kitty Hawk.
In Kuwait City, Kuwaiti officials said that a missile hit the center of Kuwaiti City shortly before 02:00 a.m. Saturday (2300 GMT Friday). According to a CNN report, the missile hit Souq Sharq,one of Kuwait's largest malls near the center of the city, causingsevere damage, but it was not immediately clear where the missile came from. A witness said the missile fell in the water near the mall, which is off the coast of Kuwaiti city and near the parliament building.
A short while ago, a huge explosion was heard in the capital ofKuwait and black plumes of smoke were seen rising skyward in the downtown areas of the city. No sirens were heard either before or after the explosion, but emergency crews were seen rushing to the site of the explosion.Since the US-led war on Iraq started on March 20, Iraq has launched more than dozen of missiles at Kuwait with most of the missiles intercepted by Patriot batteries. No casualties and property damage were caused by the previous retaliatory missile attacks from Iraq. cEarly Friday, coalition warplanes had destroyed a surface-to-surface missile launcher in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, which was considered responsible for the missile attacks on Kuwait.
Kuwait has not joined directly the ongoing invasion of Iraq, but rather served as a launching pad for the US-led coalition forces in attacking Iraq. At the United Nations on Friday, the Security Council approved a resolution revamping the UN oil-for-food program with consensus.The resolution, cosponsored by all of the 15 members of the council, is designed to tap billions of dollars in Iraqi oil revenues to purchase food and medicine in a bid to avert a humanitarian crisis in the war. Also at the United Nations in New York, Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said on Friday that he will step down from thecurrent post when his contract expires in June. Blix was named aschairman of UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission in April 2000.
In Washington, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused Syria of shipping military supplies to Iraq, saying that it posed a "direct threat" to the coalition and the US believes the Syrian government is "accountable." Rumsfeld also issued a stern warning to Iran against its interfering with US-British military operations in neighboring Iraq. He said armed supporters of Iran's government entering Iraq would be considered enemy combatants if they interfere with US-British forces there.
Also in Washington, US President George W. Bush said on Friday that the US military is making "great progress" in the Iraq war. Bush made the statement amid worries that unconventional Iraqi tactics and stretched US supply lines may lengthen the war. "Against this enemy, we will accept no outcome except complete victory," Bush said. In Doha, the US Central Command issued a statement on Friday saying that four marines from the US 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were missing during a fierce fighting in Nasiriya. The statement said the American forces are "aggressively seeking to determine the status of these (missing) individuals." In Beirut, Lebanese Al-Hayat LBC television carried an interview with Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahaf on Friday, in which al-Sahaf dismissed as "baseless" US claims that Syria was supplying Iraq with military equipment.
British Soldier Dies in Friendly fire
A British soldier was killed and three others were injured in a "friendly fire" incident in southern Iraq on Friday afternoon, local reports said late on Friday.The soldier was killed after an American A10 tank-buster plane targeted two armored vehicles, reports quoted defense sources as saying.
"We can confirm we are investigating an incident involving possible friendly fire as a matter of urgency," a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defense said. The death is the fifth among the British troops caused by "friendly fire" since the US-led war on Iraq broke out on March 20. Two British pilots were killed last week when their Tornado bomber was shot down by American Patriot missiles near the border between Iraq and Kuwait. Two other British tank crew were killed late on Monday in "friendly fire" from another British Challenger II during a night battle with Iraqi forces on the outskirts of Basra, Iraq's second largest city. Up to now, about 21 British soldiers have been killed in battles or accidents. Two others are missing.American team extinguishes A 4well in Iraq's
American team extinguishes A 4well in Iraq's AL-Rumailah field - source
KUWAIT, March 29 (KUNA) -- The A 4well in the southern Iraqi AL-Rumailah
oilfield, set ablaze by retreating Iraqi regime forces, has been put out by
the American oil firefighting team Saturday morning, a Kuwait petroleum source
said. The source told Kuwait News Agency that A 4is the second oilwell out of six
believed to have been set aflame by the Iraqi regime in AL-Rumailah, scene of
three other big fires torched by the Iraqi regime to check the advance of
coalition forces.The American firefighting company, which had arrived the fire area last
Wednesday, had started dousing A 4Friday after finishing positioning their
equipment around the blazing well near Kuwait's northern borders.
The Kuwaiti and American firefighting teams have been laising work to put
out blazes in the AL-Rumailah oilfield including six oilwell fires.
Now that two oilwell fires have been doused, the Kuwaiti and American teams
face two more burning oilwells both near the Kuwaiti borders, the source
concluded.
Hijacking of Turkish plane ends peacefully
ATHENS, March 29 -- The 20-year-old Turkish hijacker of a Turkish Airlines plane earlier Saturday surrendered to Greek police and was arrested, and all the 194 passengers and nine crewsaboard the plane were released and sent to safe places, a Greek government spokesman said. So far, all the passengers and crew were unharmed and in good health as the hijacking ended peacefully. The young hijacker, who claimed he had explosives strapped to his body, seized domestic Flight TK 160 at 22:00 local time shortly after the takeoff from Istanbul to Ankara on Friday. Police in Turkey confirmed that the hijacker was Turkish citizen, and so far there has been no evidence that tied him to any terrorist organization. Police said the hijacker's aim was still unclear, but he initially wanted to fly to Berlin and complained that his mother and sister were being kept "hostage," Turkey's Transportation Ministry said
Reporters Without Borders makes urgent appeal to all sides in the war to help find nine missing journalists
Reporters Without Borders called today on all sides in the Iraq war to help find nine journalists who are missing in the war zone, some of them since the start of the eight-day conflict."We are very worried and we urge the Iraqi, US and British authorities to make every effort to help find them," said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard. "Confusion on the battlefield and the ongoing fighting must not be used as an excuse for Iraqi and US-British forces to ignore the safety of reporters and cameramen who have come to cover a war that has already cost lives among the media."More
2003-03-29 02:20:00
WASHINGTON, March 28 - In the past few days, US intelligence thwarted two Iraqi terror plots, which were against US facilities in two countries, CNN reported Friday
New York Bridge Closed following Terrorist Threats
NEW YORK -March 28 Accoprding to leading international news agencies, New York Police arrested three men for climbing the Williamsburg Bridge linking Manhattan and Brooklyn across the East River in New York on Friday. The bridge was closed in the morning peak-hour. According to reports, the US anti-terrorism teams converged on the area.The three men arrested at 8:17 a.m. told officers they were climbers "fooling around" on the cables of the bridge. Police also said they may have been partying through the night.
The prank sparked a response by New York police, fire and other emergency units, including radiation detection teams, bomb squads, aviation, harbor and scuba divers for any possible threat to the city. Traffic was snarled on the main FDR Drive thoroughfare along the East river. The report added that other New York bridges were searched as a precaution, but none other than the Williamsburg Bridge was closed, officials said.The identity of three men and their identity was not immediately released.
Rumsfeld suggests isolation of Baghdad to allow time for uprising
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested on Thursday that US forces might first besiege Baghdad before engaging in an all-out urban war in the city, allowing time for residents there to rise up against the Iraqi government.Testifying before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, Rumsfeld noted that both Basra and Baghdad have large Shiite populations who are not favorable to the government.Unconfirmed reports said in Basra, in south Iraq, the Shiites staged an uprising against the regime as British troops laid siege on the second largest Iraqi city. Reports said that judging from the stiff resistance US troops have met outside Baghdad, an urban war in the city of 5 million residents might inflict heavier than expected casualties on US troops.
Rumsfeld told Senators that US-led coalition forces moved from outside the country to within 50 miles of Baghdad in a week, adding that it is a "substantial" progress. But he also cautioned that the US troops now have to face the tougher forces of the Republican Guard before they launch an attack on Baghdad.Pentagon officials said US would add more than 100,000 troops to US ground forces in Iraq in the next month. There are now about 125,000 US and British ground troops in south Iraq. The reinforcement would bring the total coalition troops in the Gulf country to more than 25,000.According to a Washington Post report Thursday, some senior US military officers are now convinced the war in Iraq is likely to last months and will require considerably more combat power than is now on hand there and in Kuwait.(keralamonitor.com)
Iraq Fires 12 Missiles Against Kuwait: Coalition Spokesman
BAGDHAD - Iraqi military on Friday fired at least 12 missiles of Al-Samoud family toward Kuwait as the US-led Iraq war entered the 9th day, a spokesman for the coalition forces told a press briefing here, adding Iraq was still a threat to its neighboring countries.US Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks, the spokesman, said the missiles were detected being fired within Iraq and the coalition forces would try to locate and destroy all Iraqi missile launchers and weapons system.
He said the United States and its coalition partners were fully convinced that Iraq did have biological or chemical weapons, adding such weapons of mass destruction might be used by the Iraqi military in the future combat. He said Iraq might have told its forces to be ready to use chemical weapons at some point, but said they had no knowledge of any command actually to do so.Iraq has always denied that it has weapons of mass destruction.Chief UN weapons inspectors said on Thursday at the UN headquarters in New York that there are no prohibited weapons used in the current Iraq war. "We have seen indications through a variety of sources and reporting means that first orders have been given that at a certain point chemical weapons might be used," said Brooks.
As to the issue of humanitarian aid to Iraqi people, Brooks said there had been some problems with the humanitarian aid because of the mines planted near the southern Iraqi port city of Umm Qasr.He said air-drops of relief goods for the Iraqi needy people were still going on, but those were insufficient.However, he said, since maritime forces have cleared mines from waterways to facilitate aid delivery, British warship Sir Galahad has arrived at Umm Qasr to deliver more aid for Iraqi people. This is the first ship bringing humanitarian aid to Iraq since the US-led invasion began last Thursday. The Sir Galahad, a British naval supply vessel carrying 200 tons of food, medicine and blankets and also water, docked in Iraq's only deepwater port at 4:28 p.m. (1328 GMT).The arrival of the ship was designed to show that Washington and London are sincere in saying that the nine-day-old war is against President Saddam Hussein and not ordinary Iraqis, observers here said.
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