Iraq urges Muslims to join 'holy war'

A senior Iraqi official made a televised address tonight which he said was from the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, calling for Muslims to join in a holy war against the coalition invasion.

Earlier today, Iraqi state television had said President Saddam would make the address personally but it was delivered instead by his information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf.

The statement said: "The aggression that the aggressors are carrying out against the stronghold of faith is an aggression on the religion, the wealth, the honour and the soul and an aggression on the land of Islam. Therefore, jihad [holy war] is a duty in confronting them."

President Saddam added that "those who are martyred will be rewarded in heaven. Seize the opportunity, my brothers".

The statement was issued as US forces were reportedly within 50 miles of Baghdad and as B52 bombers were pounding Republican Guard positions north of Kerbala.

President Saddam has delivered two televised addresses since the attack began on March 20. It was unclear why he did not appear in person, particularly as rumours persist about his health. "Strike at them, fight them," President Saddam's statement said. "They are aggressors, evil, accursed by God. You shall be victorious and they shall be vanquished."

Earlier, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister called for an end to the war, urging President Saddam to step down to spare Iraq more bloodshed.

US backs checkpoint killings soldiers

A spokesman for US central command today backed soldiers who shot seven women and children at a checkpoint and blamed the Iraqi regime for the killings.

Navy Captain Frank Thorp said initial reports indicated the soldiers from the US 3rd Infantry Division had acted properly in firing on a car that failed to stop at a checkpoint in the southern Iraqi desert near Najaf last night.

According to the US military, the soldiers motioned for the car to stop and fired warning shot when their commands were ignored. When those shots were ignored the soldiers fired shots into the car engine but it continued to drive towards the checkpoint.

The soldiers then fired into the passenger compartment of the vehicle.

Today, the 13th day of the conflict, US marines shot dead another unarmed driver and badly wounded his passenger at a roadblock in the southern town of Shatra, south of Baghdad. He was shot at after his pickup truck was driven at speed towards a checkpoint. "I thought it was a suicide bomb," one of the soldiers who fired on the vehicle told Reuters.

Troops have been nervous, and have been ordered to be more cautious, after the suicide car bomb attack on Saturday which killed four US soldiers at a checkpoint, near Najaf which is close to the scene of last night's killings.

Capt Throp said the blood of from the incident was "on the regime of Saddam Hussein" because of guerrilla tactics and the strategy of challenging coalition troops at checkpoints.

However a different picture was provided by the Washington Post which quoted the US captain at the intersection as saying his forward platoon had failed to give the van ample notice that it would be shelled. "You just [expletive] killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!" it quoted Captain Ronny Johnson telling his platoon leader.

The newspaper also claimed ten people were killed by US gunfire.

British army spokesman Colonel Chris Vernon said that the killings undermined attempts to win over the local population, but told the BBC: "We must allow our junior commanders who are doing the business on the ground to make these split-second decisions as they think best."

Pictures of injured and dead civilians, broadcast across the Muslim world by Arabic satellite channels, have fuelled opposition to the war and sparked angry protests.
Full story: Seven women and children shot dead at checkpoint

Blunkett: War has raised terror threat

Britain is in danger of simultaneous terrorist attacks on it and the US because of the two countries alliance in the war with Iraq, the home secretary David Blunkett warned tonight.

Speaking in Washington, where he had held joint talks with the US director of homeland security, Tom Ridge, Mr Blunkett announced a new joint working group between the home office and Mr Ridge's department to combat international terrorism.

Mr Blunkett said: "Because of the conflict with Iraq we need to be more vigilant." He added though that there was now "unprecedented cooperation" between London and Washington. Mr Ridge said the meeting was to share ideas and examples of "best practice".
Blunkett warns of twin terror threat

More bombing of Iraqi cities

Heavy air raids pummelled the Baghdad's southern and western outskirts today where Republican Guard units man defensive lines, ready to face US troops advancing from the south. After a night of bombing targeting the heart of the Iraqi capital and Republican Guard units, the south of the capital was hit by two explosions at dawn. A heavy detonation then broke a post-dawn lull about 9am local time (0600 BST).

In a midnight raid, five huge blasts hit the centre of the city and one of President Saddam's sprawling compounds on the banks of the river Tigris.

The complex, used by President Saddam, his son Qusay and aides, has been hit several times in the past 48 hours.

Another explosion came from the headquarters of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, which is headed by President Saddam's eldest son, Uday. Human rights activists have accused him of jailing and torturing athletes there.

Iraq's information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, said the raids on Baghdad had killed 24 people and wounded more than 125 since yesterday. He said 32 civilians had been killed and more than 144 wounded in other parts of Iraq.

US warplanes later attacked targets close to the oil city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. Local Kurds said the planes could be targeting an Iraqi arms depot but this could not be confirmed.

Then just before 1700BST there was a large explosion, ostensibly from a coalition bombing, on a site near Kifri, a town east of Baghdad.

The push to Baghdad

Reuters correspondents with US military units said US troops yesterday fought Iraqi soldiers firing from buildings and foxholes around a bridge over the Euphrates river at Hindiya. This is the closest to the capital that ground fighting has been reported.

US troops have also advanced to the outskirts of Hilla, about 60 miles south of Baghdad. Iraq reported fierce fighting in and around the city of Nassiriya, 235 miles south-east of the capital, and said that invading troops had suffered heavy casualties.

The prime minister, Tony Blair, today told his war cabinet that the conflict in Iraq had entered its second phase of "a steady advance" towards Baghdad.

Both Downing Street officials and, in a later speech, the foreign secretary Jack Straw, stressed that more military and civilian loss of life was inevitable in the coming campaign - but both began to speak also of post-conflict Iraq.

Mr Straw said he favoured a United Nations conference to bring together Iraqi Kurds, Shia and Sunnis to form a new state after the war.

Straw warns against snap judgments

No 10 was more circumspect than Mr Straw, saying that in light of reports of a detailed United States blueprint for an interim administration being prepared there were "continuing discussions" on the subject.

Mr Blair's official spokesman said that in areas already occupied by coalition forces, the fear factor among the local population was now "receding day by day" with troops increasingly being given a "warm welcome".

Basra under siege

Iraqi civilians fleeing the southern city today said that they faced pressure from members of the ruling Ba'ath party not to rise up against President Saddam.

"The Ba'ath party has been going around Basra and using megaphones to warn us that we had better join the war effort," an Iraqi resident, who declined to give his name, told a Reuters correspondent at an army checkpoint on the outskirts of the city.

But resistance has continued in the city, confounding British and US hopes that the Shia people of southern Iraq would repeat their 1991 revolt against President Saddam's largely Sunni leadership. That revolt was brutally put down.

Col Vernon - the British army spokesman - said the strategy adopted by British troops in the south of Iraq was to target Ba'ath officials and the Fedayeen militia.

"We have got to drive a wedge between the hardline Ba'ath party and the militia they are controlling, and the civilian population who are intimidated by them," he said. "That really enshrines everything we are trying to do here."

British forces have besieged Basra since reaching its outskirts at the start of the 13-day-old war and fought with troops defending it.

British casualty

Another British soldier has been killed in southern Iraq, bringing the total British death toll to 26, it was announced today.

Excluding the latest casualty, 25 British soldiers had died in the 13-day-old war so far, five in action and 20 in accidents or "friendly fire".