Massive explosions rocked central Baghdad late Thursday night, sending a towering plume of smoke skyward in the strongest blasts felt in the city in days.
Shortly after 11 p.m. in Baghdad, explosions shook the capital near the city center. Buildings close to the Information Ministry appeared to have been hit.
Witnesses said an unknown number of people were killed and injured when a housing complex for employees of a weapons-producing facility came under attack. The Military Industrialization Authority of Iraq complex is in the Al-Youssifiah area, about 20 kilometers south of the capital.
Another blast west of the Information Ministry, possibly from a missile, sent scores of journalists fleeing. Anti-aircraft guns on the roof of the ministry opened fire, witnesses said, but there was no immediate information on damage or casualties.
One of Baghdad's main telephone facilities also was hit early Thursday, causing some disruptions in service.
Iraqi state television, which was still on the air, reported Thursday that Saddam Hussein chaired a meeting of the ruling Baath Party, his top aides and his son, Qusai. It said Saddam and the leadership urged Iraqi fighters to exploit what it called the "exhaustion" of invasion forces.
Silent video was shown of another meeting of Saddam, Qusai and other party officials.
Earlier Thursday, Iraq's defense minister said the real battle for Baghdad will be on its streets, and that the regime will prolong the war as long as possible.
"The enemy must come inside Baghdad, and that will be its grave," said Defense Minister Sultan Hashem Ahmed. "We feel that this war must be prolonged so the enemy pays a high price," he said at a news conference at a downtown Baghdad hotel.
Ahmed said he expected that U.S.-led forces would manage to encircle Baghdad within five to 10 days but they would then have to face fierce street fighting that could last months.
"We set up our defenses in Baghdad. It will be no surprise that in five to 10 days they will be able to encircle all our positions in Baghdad. They have the capability to do so," he told a news conference.
"But they have to come into the city eventually...God willing, Baghdad will be impregnable. We will fight to the end and everywhere. History will record how well Iraqis performed in defense of their capital," Ahmed said.
Asked whether the fighting in Baghdad will be on the streets, Ahmed replied, "Yes." He called the two-day sandstorm that engulfed Iraq this week and slowed the U.S.-led forces "a divine gift to tell the aggressor that he is an aggressor."
The Iraqi armed forces said in a communiquי they had killed nine more troops over the past 24 hours and had destroyed 10 tanks and 13 armored personnel carriers.
According to the latest official count, the US and Britain have lost a total of 44 troops killed and 12 missing.
Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has insisted there will be no ceasefire in the war. "I have no idea what some country might propose but there isn't going to be a ceasefire," he said.
Rumsfeld also gave a new warning that bitter fighting could be expected as US and British troops closed in on Baghdad.
"The so-called Republican Guard forces are ringing Baghdad some 40-50 miles (65-80kms) away from it, and very likely that will be some of the toughest fighting that will occur, and that's yet ahead of us," he told reporters.
He said the Republican Guard had also formed a ring around Saddam's home city of Tikrit in the north of Iraq.
"One has to recognize that the regular forces have been more inclined to not defend the regime to the end. And the Republican Guard have been more inclined to defend the regime, although that's not 100 per cent.
"It's only reasonable to expect that it will require the coalition forces moving through some Republican Guard units and destroying them or capturing them before you'll see the crumbling of the regime."
Rumsfeld reaffirmed administration warnings of a long conflict and that US and British forces "are still closer to the beginning than the end." (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
