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Final push in fog

Reporters see no sign of US claim to enter central Baghdad; Fedayeens patrol city; Iraq claims to have killed 100s in airport battle; US claims 1000 Iraqi troops dead

STAR DESK
The push for Baghdad has entered a foggy phase with the US troops claiming to have penetrated into the centre of the capital without much resistance, but journalists said they have not seen any invading forces.
Both Reuters correspondent and BBC's Rageh Omaar said they saw no American troops in the centre of Baghdad.
The Red Cross said fighting has erupted as the Anglo-American forces are advancing and several hundred wounded civilians have been admitted to hospitals.
The mood in the capital is grim. People are panicky as they brace for intense urban combat. Many of them are fleeing the city that Iraq still says is firmly under its control and that "everything is okay".
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said even Saddam International Airport is under Iraqi control and the invading forces have been chased off. But TV pictures showed US army searching through an airport building.
CLAIMS, COUNTERCLAIMS
Iraq also claimed that "hundreds" of US troops were killed in the airport fight. The US said 1,000 Iraqi troops were killed in fierce fighting on Baghdad streets.
SEE PAGE 11 COL 4 FROM PAGE 1
But what could be confirmed is that three US soldiers died in a vehicle "accident" at the airport. And two US marine pilots were killed when their AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopter crashed in central Iraq.
At least four US soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously, in fighting in and around Baghdad yesterday, US military sources said.
"An Apache helicopter had to fly out one of those injured. He was reportedly shot in the head," Reuters reporter Luke Baker said.
The US military also said it had intelligence that Iraq had ordered the eighth and 15th brigades of the elite Republican Guards to move from their current positions south of the capital toward the centre to meet the invaders.
One US tank was damaged by rocket-propelled grenades. A second tank had to be abandoned in Baghdad because of mechanical failure, Baker said.
American troops encountered fierce but sporadic resistance, from Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard forces in the south and west of the capital, according to military spokesmen.
Journalists who toured the city found burnt-out tanks and armoured vehicles in the suburbs and saw blood-covered civilians being taken into a hospital.
News agencies reported that a force of about 30 tanks and armoured
vehicles had moved into the city.
The tension was palpable in Baghdad. At midday, several rockets were launched southward from a truck in the central district of al-Salhiya.
Members of Saddam's Fedayeen, a militia led by Saddam Hussein's son Odai, appeared in the city centre for the first time since the war began. The secret police were easily identified by their distinctive black uniforms.
A convoy of police cars, sirens blaring and flying Iraqi flags, drove around the city centre trying to rally residents.
Throughout the morning, armed men in pickup trucks dashed across the city at high speed. Others with Kalashnikovs ran toward an area where a coalition pilot was rumoured to have parachuted.
US forces were moving in a pincer from two sides toward the city. With artillery thundering overhead, marines pushed through Iraqi fire to within a few miles of Baghdad's southeastern outskirts early yesterday.
Black smoke poured into the sky over parts of Baghdad from fires set to obscure targets, and loud explosions were heard throughout the morning, punctuated by bursts of machine gun fire. Baghdad has taken on the look of a city under siege, with soldiers digging trenches and foxholes along the highway leading south.
Marines said they had come across many non-Iraqi fighters -- mostly Jordanians and Egyptians.
The Iraqis were fighting mostly with small weapons -- Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades -suggesting they were mostly Saddam's Fedayeen fighters, rather than regular army or Republican Guards.
Other frontlines
US troops fought street by street battles with Iraqi paramilitaries in the central city of Karbala yesterday in an attack aimed at protecting the backs of US forces moving into Baghdad.
Iraqi fighters took positions on rooftops in the narrow streets and opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles. US planes hit back with laser-guided bombs, artillery and heavy arms fire.
The US army is reported to have captured the Suwayra headquarters of the Republican Guard's Medina Division, but a military official in Doha could not confirm.
American B-52 bombers attack Iraqi positions about 10 km north of the northern city of Mosul.
US rangers and special forces are reported to have taken control of the road leading to Tikrit --the birthplace of President Saddam Hussein -- to the immediate north of Baghdad.
In Basra, British forces say they are moving further into the city and have destroyed a building where one of Iraq's most important military commanders, Ali Hassan al-Majid also known as Chemical Ali, was thought to be staying.