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Human bombs gather in Iraq

4,000 Arab suicide bombers cross into Iraq; attacker drives truck into US soldiers in Kuwait wounding five; 2 Apache gunships, 1 Harrier shot down, claims Iraq

STAR DESK
Baghdad brandished mass-scale suicide attacks as more than 4,000 Arabs have reportedly arrived in Iraq ready to martyr themselves in the fight against the Anglo-American invaders.
"The martyrdom attacks by the sons of Iraq and by the armed forces have just begun," Iraqi military spokesman Hazim al-Rawi told a news conference one day after a suicide bombing at a US checkpoint.
"These are the first on the glorious path of Jihad (holy war) against the invaders," he said. He added that the suicide attack near the central city of Najaf on Saturday had killed 11 US soldiers, rather than four as reported by Washington.
Meanwhile, an attacker drove a truck into a group of soldiers lined up
outside a military PX shop at a US base in Kuwait yesterday apparently in a suicide attack, a US military source said.
The source had no further details about the incident at Udairi Camp north of Kuwait City, but a worker in the camp told Reuters he had heard the sound of shooting at the time of the incident and ambulances had been called to the scene.
On the 11the day of the invasion, Iraq claimed to have shot down two Apache helicopters, one in Basra and the other in southern Iraq, and a Harrier jump-jet.
And casualties piled up on the Anglo-American side as two US marines were killed in vehicle accidents in southern-central Iraq: one was hit by a Humvee jeep during a firefight with Iraqi soldiers and the other drowned
when his car rolled into a canal.
Baghdad pounding continues
Taking a pause in the ground advance, the invaders relentlessly pounded Baghdad from the air yesterday. US soldiers said their ground advance on the city could be delayed for weeks.
About 30 cruise missiles hit the capital. The latest round of ferocious pounding has targeted government sites and repeatedly blasted Republican Guard positions defending the capital.
One blast in an eastern suburb was strong enough to shake Reuters correspondents' hotel in the centre.
Air raid sirens keened across the city of five million and black smokes, from oil trenches set alight to thwart air raids, blanketed the southern and eastern approaches.
The US military said it had bombed a training site for paramilitary Fedayeen, a presidential palace, intelligence complex and surface-to-air missile sites in Baghdad.
Frontier fights
A soldier supervising the ammunition column to US forces further east told Reuters he was supplying thousands of the most powerful high-explosive 155mm howitzer shells to the front. The most used shell was a version that showers smaller bomblets over a wide area, decimating infantry dug in along defensive lines.
Food rations have also been cut
sharply for at least some frontline US units and fuel use has been limited. But headquarters commanders said they were pressing on with the war.
US forces just north of Najaf fired intense artillery and mortar barrages at Iraqi troops close to a bridge over the Euphrates river in the early hours.
The Iraqis returned fire with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. Iraqi forces still held the centre of Basra, which is surrounded on three sides by British-led forces.
Tough nut to crack
Iraqi resistance has surprised the invaders in a number of southern towns, including presumed anti-Saddam strongholds like Basra, prompting calls for US reinforcements and a rethink of tactics. Close ally Australia's defence minister said Washington had "underestimated" the strength of Iraqi irregular units.
British troops around Basra are calling on their experience of fighting Irish guerrillas in Belfast. A spokesman said marines fought Iraqi paramilitaries south of Basra but were still not advancing into the embattled city of 1.5 million.
Iraqi resistance has surprised the invaders in a number of southern towns, including presumed anti-Saddam strongholds like Basra, prompting calls for U.S. reinforcements and a rethink of tactics. Close ally Australia's defence minister said Washington had "underestimated" the strength of Iraqi irregular units.
"The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against," the army's senior ground commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General William Wallace, told The Washington Post.
Diehard guerrillas and soldiers disguised as civilians have harassed US supply lines and slowed the advance to Baghdad, and there have been no mass surrenders or popular uprisings as the Pentagon had hoped.
A general from Saddam Hussein army has been captured in southern Iraq and is being pressed to provide strategic information, British officers said.
Seeking to counter criticism of the U.S. war effort by military analysts and the media, officials from Bush downwards began emphasising the harshness of Saddam's rule and defending their tactics against suggestions they under-estimated Iraq.
British troops abandoned efforts to stop hundreds of people trying to get back into Basra to feed hungry relatives there.
U.S. reinforcements are on the way to beef up the quarter-million strong U.S.-led force in the Gulf. The Fourth Infantry Division, blocked from opening a planned northern front by Turkish obstruction, is sailing toward Kuwait.
SuicideWatch
US and British troops across Iraq were on special guard on Sunday after an Iraqi officer blew up his car at a checkpoint.
"Any method that stops or kills the enemy will be used," Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said on Saturday.
"It doesn't affect the operation at large. But to protect our soldiers, it clearly requires great care," said Major General Stanley McChrystal of the U.S. Joint Staff.
One man who sheltered from a fierce street battle in the town of Kifl, south of Baghdad, spoke for many ordinary Iraqis who find it hard to like the invaders: "The Iraqis do not love foreigners coming to our country with their guns," he said.
"They say they will leave when they change the government, but we do not believe them. I think they want our oil."
While American and British public opinion has swung behind their forces since the war began, international protests continued over the weekend. On Sunday, 100,000 marched in Jakarta, Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.
Killer mission
The Washington Post Saturday reported US covert operations teams were in Iraqi cities trying kill off President Saddam Hussein's closest associates.
CIA paramilitaries and other special operations troops have Baath Party leaders, Special Republican Guard commanders and others of Saddam's inner circle intheir sights, US and foreign officials told the Post.