Massive blasts rock Baghdad night
Baghdad was heavily bombarded tonight, sending a towering plume of smoke skyward in the strongest blasts felt in the city in days.
Explosions shook the Iraqi capital near the Old Palace compound on the west bank of the Tigris River, not far from some of the buildings hit last week.
Buildings close to the Information Ministry appeared to have been hit.
Witnesses also said a housing complex for employees of a weapons-producing facility about 12 miles south of the capital was targeted in an attack, and that an unknown number of people were killed and wounded.
Iraqi officials put the civilian casualty toll at 4,000, including 350 killed. Other strong explosions followed, some to the south-west of the city.
There also was bombing in the Mosul area in northern Iraq but there was no immediate word on damage or casualties.
Earlier, Iraq’s defence minister said the real battle for Baghdad will be on its streets, and that Saddam Hussein’s regime will prolong the war as long as possible.
“The enemy must come inside Baghdad, and that will be its grave,” said Defence 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.
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 US-led coalition “a divine gift to tell the aggressor that he is an aggressor.”
