A suicide bomber in a taxi killed five American soldiers Saturday at a
checkpoint in south-central Iraq, a U.S. officer said. The attack came as
coalition forces sought to quell paramilitary harassment in order to
prepare for an all-out push toward Baghdad.
It was the first suicide bombing against U.S. and British forces since
the invasion of Iraq began.
Capt. Andrew Wallace said the victims were part of the Army's 1st
Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, manning a checkpoint on a highway north of
Najaf. A taxi stopped close to the checkpoint, the driver waved for help.
and the car exploded as five soldiers approached, Wallace told Associated
Press Television News.
U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar, confirmed the incident.
In Baghdad, U.S. cruise missiles struck the Iraqi Information Ministry
on Saturday, while mourners gathered at a marketplace where Iraqi
officials said 58 civilians were killed by a coalition bomb. Kuwaiti
authorities said Iraq fired a missile of its own that damaged a popular
shopping mall in Kuwait City.
Ground combat continued in southern and central Iraq, notably around
the cities of Karbala and Nasiriyah, while U.S. forces pressed ahead with
air and missile strikes aimed at weakening Republican Guard positions
defending Baghdad. The latest round of strikes included attacks by Apache
helicopter gunships of the 101st Airborne Division.
Some U.S. combat units were slowing their advance while supply and
communications support is beefed up, but coalition officials said there
was no broad order to delay the push toward Baghdad.
````It is purely a case of shaping the battlefield, getting our troops
equipped and in the right place for the next part of the campaign,'' said
Group Capt. Al Lockwood, a spokesman for coalition forces.
Thus far, according to coalition officials, the frequent attacks on
supply lines by Iraqi paramilitary fighters have not derailed preparations
for the expected all-out assault on Republican Guard divisions near
Baghdad. But Lockwood acknowledged that the aggressive paramilitary
activity had not been anticipated by U.S. and British war planners.
``What we've encountered is yes, something slightly different:
paramilitary forces that weren't in the war-game profile,'' Lockwood said.
``We have contingency plans... they have been brought into action to deal
with these forces and have not at all deflected us from achieving our
objectives and maintaining our timeline.''
In Kuwait City, a missile exploded early Saturday on a pier near a
multilevel seafront shopping center, blasting out windows and causing two
minor injuries. It was first missile to hit Kuwait City since U.S. troops
based there invaded neighboring Iraq on March 20.
Col. Youssef al-Mullah, the spokesman for Kuwait's military, told The
Kuwait News Agency on Saturday that the missile that landed near Souk
Sharq was manufactured in Iraq.
Iraqi authorities had no immediate comment on the Kuwaiti allegation,
but said the explosion Friday evening at the Al-Nasr market in Baghdad was
evidence that U.S. and British forces were targeting civilian areas.
The U.S. Central Command said it was trying to determine what caused
the explosion, but repeated its denials that Iraqi civilian neighborhoods
are targeted.
Overall, Iraq claims more than 4,000 civilians have been killed or
wounded since the war began.
Early Saturday, another strong explosion shook the center of Baghdad.
U.S. officials said the Information Ministry was targeted before dawn by
Tomahawk cruise missiles, but the building appeared intact at midmorning.
South of Baghdad, Marines battled Iraqi fighters in and around the
Euphrates River city of Nasiriyah. Cobra helicopters fired rockets into
the city, which was shrouded in smoke from a burning power plant.
U.S. forces were trying to clear the strategic road around Nasiriyah,
which lies at a junction of highways leading to Baghdad. Four Marines with
the 1st Expeditionary Force, which is engaged in the battle, were reported
missing.
Fifty miles southwest of Baghdad, U.S. warplanes and artillery pounded
the city of Karbala, concentrating on Iraqi forces moving south to
confront U.S. troops. Iraqi forces sent armored vehicles to probe U.S.
defense overnight; U.S. officers reported destroying two of the vehicles.
The U.S. Central Command said American warplanes firing laser-guided
missiles destroyed a two-story building where some 200 Iraqi paramilitary
fighters were believed to be meeting Friday in the besieged southern city
of Basra.
U.S. officials said they did not know what happened to the building's
occupants after the attack, which targeted units loyal to Saddam Hussein
that British officials say have clamped down on restive civilians in
Basra.
British forces surround the city - Iraq's second-largest, with a
population of 1.3 million - and want to open the way for badly needed
humanitarian aid. But they have yet to move in, wary of facing
street-by-street resistance from the militiamen.
British officials said Saturday that a British soldier was missing and
believed killed, and four others injured, after armored vehicles came
under attack in a possible ``friendly fire'' incident near Basra. The
Defense Ministry said it was investigating reports that the soldiers -
members of the Household Cavalry Regiment - were fired on by U.S.
warplanes.
The death would bring to five the number of British servicemen killed
by ``friendly fire.'' Four have been killed in combat and 14 in accidents.
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