Allies Launch Second Round of Heavy Nighttime Bombing

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BAGHDAD — Several loud explosions rocked Baghdad late Saturday night as allied forces launched a second round of heavy nighttime bombing over strategic positions in Iraq.
Sky News correspondent David Chater reported seeing a massive cloud of smoke in the Iraqi capital.

Air raid sirens didn't sound the alert until after several bombs had struck their targets, suggesting that the attack may have been carried out by American stealth bombers.

Reuters reported that a large part of the city had been plunged into darkness.

Senior Defense officials told Fox News' Major Garrett that the aerial campaign would continue through the night, and that the Pentagon had compiled a long list of targets to be hit before morning.

The bombardment began when a series of Tomahawk missiles slammed into the Iraqi capital early Saturday night, and some apparently hit the center of the city.

F-117 stealth fighters connected with the Air Force's 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing were refueling. On Friday, the 332nd ran 250 sorties as coalition forces launched the "shock and awe" phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

To the south, U.S. and British forces fought Iraqi troops for control of Basra, while air strikes pounded far-flung targets across the country.

U.S. officials said the Iraqi regime was clearly losing control of the country. "The erosion from Baghdad has begun," one U.S. official told Fox News. The Iraqis reportely had set several oil trenches on fire near Baghdad in a desperate defensive move.

Officials told Fox News that some top security and military personnel have been fleeing Baghdad, and more are preparing to leave.

Iraqi state television -- in an effort to show that the regime is firmly in control -- showed what it said was footage of Saddam chairing meetings Saturday with senior government ministers and with his son Qusai.

Four U.S. soldiers with the 3rd Infantry Division were wounded in central Iraq when two Humvees were hit by rocket-propelled grenades, the Pentagon said. Earlier, there was an erroneous report that the four were killed.

American forces have progressed 150 miles into Iraq, halfway to Baghdad, and the allies have successfully crossed the Euphrates River, the major waterway en route to the capital, Brig. Gen. Stanley McChrystal of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said at a Pentagon news briefing.

Gen. Tommy Franks, in his first briefing at U.S. Central Command, said in the days ahead the world will see the truth of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's statement that Saddam Hussein was given a choice to give up weapons of mass destruction or lose power. Franks said Saddam chose unwisely -- "and now he will lose both."

U.S. Gen. Vincent Brooks said Iraq sabotaged nine oil wells of about 500 in a southern area of Rumaila as U.S.-led forces invaded Thursday.

And after weeks of waiting off Turkey's coast, dozens of U.S. ships carrying weaponry for the Army's 4th Infantry Division were being redirected to the Persian Gulf, two U.S. defense officials said.

The decision ends U.S. hopes of using Turkish bases to move heavy armored forces into northern Iraq.

Leaving throngs of captured Iraqis behind them in razor-wire pens, U.S. and British forces were advancing toward Basra, southern Iraq's largest city.

U.S. aircraft bombed Iraqi tanks holding the bridges near the city of 1.3 million, and Marines captured the airport after a gunbattle.

Near Basra, Cobra attack helicopters, attack jets, tanks and 155 mm howitzers tried to clear the way for the troops headed up Highway 80 -- nicknamed the "Highway of Death" during the 1991 Gulf War, when U.S. airstrikes destroyed an Iraqi military convoy using it to flee Kuwait.

Along the roadside, a few children waved; others patted their stomachs or lifted their hands to their mouths, signaling hunger.

Left behind were large numbers of malnourished and overmatched Iraqi soldiers who surrendered Friday. Among those giving up were the commander and deputy commander of Iraq's 51st Infantry, the highest-ranking Iraqi officials known to have surrendered thus far.

British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said most regular Iraqi troops have withdrawn from Basra, but members of Saddam's security forces continued to defend the city.

A British military spokesman, Lt. Col. Chris Vernon, said allied forces hope to avoid bloody urban warfare and will not immediately try to storm Basra. The allies hope Basra's military and civil leaders can gradually be persuaded to capitulate as they see Saddam's regime losing power.

In Baghdad, explosions were heard throughout the day, but not at the intensity of the fierce overnight bombardment that shattered one of Saddam's palaces and destroyed the nine-story intelligence headquarters.

"The lights stayed on in Baghdad, but the instruments of tyranny are collapsing," Hoon said.

West of Baghdad, along the Euphrates River, another of Saddam's palaces was destroyed in a strike by warplanes from the USS Theodore Roosevelt, according to a commander aboard the carrier in the Mediterranean. And in far-north Iraq, U.S. forces fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at suspected positions of the Ansar al Islam guerrillas, which the United States accuses of ties to Al Qaeda terrorists.

At a briefing in Doha, Qatar, Franks, commander of the U.S.-led forces, said the assault on Iraq would be one of "shock, surprise, flexibility," using munitions on a "scale never before seen."

"Our troops are performing magnificently," said Franks, who indicated that surrender negotiations with Iraqi military commanders were in progress.

Franks said he had no idea where Saddam was at present. Regarding weapons of mass destruction, the general said none had been located by the invasion force thus far, but he voiced certainty that some would be found as the troops advance.

U.S. and British commanders said their troops captured many key facilities in Iraq's southern oil fields, saving them from possible sabotage and ensuring their use for postwar reconstruction. Only nine oil wells were found to be ablaze -- far fewer than many officials had feared.

Adm. Michael Boyce, chief of the British defense staff, said nearly all the oil and gas installations had been mined or booby-trapped, indicating Saddam was "prepared to blow up his entire economy."

Two U.S. Marines were killed in combat in the area Friday. One U.S. Navy officer died Saturday along with six Britons when two Royal Navy helicopters collided over the Persian Gulf.

Senior Defense officials told Fox News that special forces units and a new team called the 75th Exploitation Task Force are now hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The 75th Exploitation Task Force has Army chemical and biological weapons teams, as well as Department of Defense civilian scientists.

The teams had a list of about 100 targets at the beginning of their mission, but that list has reportedly expanded.

U.S. officials told Fox News late Friday that the government is confident that Saddam Hussein was seen being rushed into an ambulance on a stretcher after the missile strikes on March 19 -- the first strike of the Iraq war. The government is in possession of images that show what is described as "panicked digging" immediately after the initial strikes on Wednesday night, with bodies seen being removed from the impact zone.

Iraqi officials claimed three people had been killed and more than 200 injured in the bombardment of Baghdad. Iraqi TV said Foreign Minister Naji Sabri sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan complaining that Americans targeted homes, schools, mosques and churches.

Yet despite the heavy overnight bombardment, there was more traffic on the streets Saturday than at any time since the war began, and more small shops and restaurants were open. In contrast to bombing campaigns of the 1991 Gulf War, all bridges across the Tigris River were intact and the city's water and power supplies functioned normally.

Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf insisted that Iraqi forces were putting up strong resistance in the south and inflicting more casualties on the invaders than were being acknowledged in Washington or London. He contended that the legions of surrendering Iraqis were civilians, not soldiers.