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Operation Iraqi Freedom

Main Attack Still To Come

The war in Iraq began with a US air strike against what the Pentagon calls "a target of opportunity" in the Baghdad area.

This was not so much a false start as a preliminary operation - a chance seized to attack leadership targets in the hope of killing senior Iraqi commanders, perhaps even Saddam Hussein himself. That last goal may well have failed, but it is clear that there was no intention to begin full-scale hostilities overnight.

Nobody knows the timing of the main US-British assault - which President Bush has called "a broad and concerted campaign". Mr Bush has sought to play down expectations of a quick victory with few casualties, warning that the battles in the days ahead could be longer and more difficult than some predict. That is a sober and probably realistic assessment.

While the US war plan has been intricately choreographed, much could still go wrong. There can be no guarantee that the Iraqi forces and President Saddam Hussein himself will operate according to the script that has been assigned to them. Reports of sporadic Iraqi missile attacks into Kuwait underline that the Iraqis too could still have a few surprises up their sleeves.

Improvised attack

But the early attacks do serve to headline the main target of the campaign - the Iraqi regime itself. Sources at the CENTCOM headquarters here in Qatar indicate that five key Iraqi commanders, including possibly Saddam Hussein himself, were thought to be at one of the locations hit.

The attack appears to have been carried out by F-117 Stealth fighters. But cruise missiles were also fired from four US navy warships and two submarines. The attacks would have to have been improvised and part preplanned. The intelligence had to be acted upon quickly, but it is clear that the F-117s were probably already in the air, loitering beyond the air defences of central Iraq, ready to move in if required.

We are still expecting the main assault - probably a closely co-ordinated air and land operation - to begin during the hours of darkness. Friday night could be the night, but then again it may not. And it is always possible that some Iraqi action could prompt General Tommy Franks, the overall US commander, to unleash the campaign of "shock and awe" that has been widely predicted.

Massive Air Raids Rock Iraq

United States and British forces have launched massive aerial assaults on targets in Baghdad and beyond in a major escalation of the war.

Bombs rained down on the Iraqi capital, as the US unleashed what it calls its "shock and awe" strategy. Several hundred targets would be hit in the coming hours, the US Defence Department said. The BBC's Paul Wood in Baghdad says the targets there included President Saddam Hussein's palaces.

Offices of the Foreign Ministry and the Deputy Prime Minister were also ablaze. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the scale of the assault was intended to show the Iraqis that Saddam Hussein was finished. "The [Iraqi] regime is starting to lose control of their country," he said.

Air strikes have also hit the city of Mosul in the north. The BBC's John Simpson, reporting from the region, said the skyline was lit up many times. Several explosions have also been reported in another northern city, Kirkuk, where American forces are trying to secure control of vast oilfields. As the bombardment continued, Iraqi Defence Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed told a news conference that "no force in the world" would conquer Iraq, the AFP news agency reports.

Port 'taken'

US-led ground forces have advanced about 160 kilometres (100 miles) into Iraq, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, General Richard Myers, told a news conference in Washington. Coalition forces are also moving on Iraq's second city, Basra, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. The advance on the city came after US Marines reached Iraq's only deep-water port at Umm Qasr in the south-east. "Umm Qasr has been overwhelmed by the US Marines and now is in coalition hands," Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, chief of the UK General Staff, told a news conference in London.

However, the BBC's Adam Mynott, who is with the troops on the ground, says that while coalition forces undoubtedly have the upper hand, they do not have total control of Umm Qasr. The port in the south-east is seen as key for the importing of aid for the Iraqi civilian population.

The US 3rd Infantry Division has moved into the centre of Iraq, close to the city of Nasiriya - a key crossing point over the Euphrates river on the way to Baghdad. The BBC's Gavin Hewitt says there have been some clashes between American forces and Iraqi forces followed by quite a strong American bombardment of the area around the city, he says.

In other reported advances, US defence officials said key airfields known as H2 and H3 in western Iraq were taken over by coalition forces. The BBC's defence correspondent, Jonathan Marcus, says these are possible jumping-off points for a multi-pronged assault on Baghdad.

Earlier in the day, British troops took control of key oil installations on the nearby al-Faw peninsula after a brief firefight - an operation designed to prevent the release of oil into the Gulf by retreating Iraqi forces. But Admiral Boyce said that elsewhere in Iraq seven oil wells had been set alight by Iraqi forces, down from an earlier estimate of 30.

In other developments:

• Turkey agrees to let US warplanes fly over its territory, but the Turkish Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul, says they will send troops into northern Iraq, despite Washington's disapproval.

• Saddam Hussein decrees that any Iraqi who captures an enemy soldier will get a reward of about $32,000, Iraq's government-run news agency reports. The reward for killing an enemy soldier was put at about $16,000.

• Two US marines are killed in southern Iraq, hours after eight British and four American servicemen die in what is believed to be a helicopter accident

• Anti-war protests continue around the world, with at least two people - one of them a policeman - killed in clashes in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa

• Patriot missile defence systems shoot down more Iraq missiles heading for Kuwait following Thursday's attacks

• French President Jacques Chirac says he will not accept a US-British post-war administration of Iraq, adding that the UN is the only body which can be responsible for rebuilding the country.

President George W Bush on Friday said the war was "making progress". He added: "We will stay on task until we've achieved our objective, which is to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and free the Iraqi people so they can live in a society that is hopeful, democratic, and at peace in its neighbourhood."

In official responses to the coalition attack, Iraqi ministers have issued defiant statements. The Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, told journalists that television pictures showing Iraqi troops surrendering were falsified. He also said that Iraqi forces had shot down a coalition fighter jet. This has been denied by the American military. Interior Minister Mahmoud Dhiab al-Ahmed described the US as a "superpower of villains", comparing President Bush to the 1920s American gangster, Al Capone.

Jonathan Marcus, BBC defence correspondent. Main attack still to come. Massive air raids rock Iraq. Stories from BBC NEWS. Published: Thursday, 20 March, 2003 & Friday, 21 March, 2003. © BBC MMVI

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