Iraqi troops mass to protect Baghdad
AP - Deafening explosions rocked central Baghdad as Iraqi troops, members of President Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen militia and teenage soldiers patrolled streets to protect the capital from US-led forces.
US forces penetrated the city for the first time, but quickly moved out and headed toward the airport on Baghdad's western edge, US Central Command officials said.
Iraqi leaders denied US troops had entered the capital and claimed Saddam's forces had retaken the airport - killing hundreds of American "scoundrels", the military said.
"Today, the tide has turned," Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf said. "We are destroying them."
But he said the Americans were in the suburbs and in a message on television urged residents to inform Iraqi troops about any US movements.
Maintain "calm, good organisation ... to confront the enemy effectively, conquer it, and force it to retreat accursed and defeated", he said.
By last night, city streets were crawling with all kinds of armed men - government troops, militiamen and loyalists from Saddam's Baath party.
Members of the Fedayeen, a militia led by Saddam's son Uday, appeared in their distinctive black uniforms in the city centre for the first time since the war began.
Armed with Kalashnikovs, mortars and heavy machine guns, soldiers of the elite Republican Guard Corps dug fresh trenches and fortified old ones. Some took over houses close to the city's southern approaches.
Government-owned Iraqi television showed footage of Saddam meeting with his sons Uday and Qusay, although it was unclear when the meeting took place.
Low-flying aircraft were heard over the city, followed by huge explosions that shook city buildings. More explosions and the sounds of artillery shelling continued.
But for most of the night, Baghdad was relatively quiet. The drone of aircraft flying overhead was frequently heard, but there was no anti-aircraft fire. At around 6am (1200 AEDT) Sunday, there was a series of loud explosions.
During the day, Iraqi tanks, armoured personnel carriers and field artillery were deployed in the capital, facing the western, southern and northern entrances that US forces were believed most likely to use.
"I am not afraid to die," said 16-year-old Thamer Mekki, an eighth-grader in blue jeans and a T-shirt who says he learned how to shoot a gun at age 14.
"I am doing this for my country," said Mekki, standing guard in the upscale Mansour district.
US troops travelled north into the capital, turned west at the Tigris River, then out of the city and toward the airport, military officials said.
During the sweep, the Americans came under intense fire from Republican Guards with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.
Earlier in the day, clouds of black smoke darkened the skies from trenches of oil set on fire as a defence, but a steady stream of cars and buses passed through the plaza in front of Baghdad's large, ornate Mosque of the Unknown Soldier.
Several rockets were launched from a truck in the central Baghdad district of Salhiya - making a roaring noise as they headed south.
On the city's southern outskirts, the burned out hulks of at least two Iraqi armoured personnel carriers and two all-terrain vehicles sat along the main highway heading south.
Many armed men, some in civilian clothes, headed toward southern districts of the city, hitchhiking for rides to the front.
There was no sign of any fighting on the road, up to about 15km south of the city centre.
Some new sites were hit by coalition bombs overnight, including the National Assembly across the street from the al-Rasheed Hotel, a police headquarters in central Baghdad and the telephone exchange of al-Maamoun.
Power returned to most of Baghdad, two days after the city went dark.
*Bows* thankyou, thankyou,
Peace!
Love Zero`
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