U.S. forces seized Baghdad international airport on Friday, and led civilians fled into the city after a "night of hell."
Civilians trying to escape the fighting around the airport, fled into Baghdad in vehicles piled high with blankets and possessions, said Reuters. "Some people I stopped said that all day since dawn people had been streaming out of the airport area," the reporter said.
"It was a night of hell," said one woman. "We saw that they have entered Baghdad, there were planes all night dropping bombs and there was shelling all night."
In Baghdad, another Reuters correspondent heard up to 100 overnight explosions from the area of the airport. More loud blasts rocked the city center early on Friday.
U.S. Central Command said U.S. and British planes had bombed Iraqi Air Force headquarters in central Baghdad.
Meanwhile, British forces said they killed eight Iraqi militiamen on Friday in a street battle on the edge of Basra.
Captain James Moulton told Reuters that 10 British tanks and armoured vehicles entered a shanty town just ahead of their positions on the city's edge, looking for militiamen, and were fired on. He said eight Iraqi fighters were killed in the battle.
Moulton said the dead included members of two rocket- propelled grenade teams but did not say whether any grenade launchers or other weapons had been captured or destroyed.
(Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
