THE allied command is claiming that it has moved within a striking range of invading Baghdad. The Iraqi authorities are saying the US-British-Australian combine is suffering from the delusions of military advances. Whatever the war of words, realities on the ground seem to be pointing to one direction: direct military confrontation or a show-down between the allied troops and the Iraqi Republican Army units is imminent. By contrast, it has hitherto been 'hurrying the tail' by the Anglo-American troops in the face of hit-and-run guerilla assaults by Iraqi defenders.

On the whole, the earlier prognostication of the Iraqi defence minister that the allied troops could encircle parts of Baghdad in five to ten days' time is proving right. The other half of his prediction that such an encirclement would be immediately followed by the fiercest kind of battles in the streets of Iraqi capital is about to come true.

Baghdad with its five to six million people is bracing for the terrible showdown. But one could not say with any degree of certitude that it will mark the climactic phase in the war. There are reasons to believe that the guerilla-style resistance is likely to continue against the operations of US-British ground forces that are regarded by all the indigenous people as an alien invading and occupying power.

One notable feature of the war has been the demolition of

the myth that the allied bombardments would trigger a massive exodus of Iraqis from the cities. Barring Basra which has seen some of its inhabitants trickling out of the northern perimeter, other cities in southern and central Iraq have not been abandoned by their populations. Even the Shia-Sunni divide is subsumed in the greater concern over losing national identity and sovereignty to an occupying power.

They are presenting a united front from within as the surge of Arab sentiments in the face of mounting civilian casualties translates into suicide bomber squads from some neighbouring Middle East countries volunteering to fight for their Iraqi brethren. As against the threat issued by the Iraqi authorities to their enemies in the wake of the lethal suicide bomber attack on an American checkpost that it was only 'the beginning', ten innocent women and children have lost their lives in a shooting incident at an allied checkpoint. And with their nerves gone taut, the US has admitted that checkpoint troops have become 'more aggressive.'

But this is only a side-point to the trail of death and destruction already left by the war which is only past its fortnight mark. So much more is left to the war with heightened physical confrontations lying in store. The Human Rights Watch, an internationally reputed monitoring organisation, has voiced its deep concern over 'the indiscriminate use' of the controversial cluster bombs in Iraq by the American troops. There has been a steep rise in the number of civilian casualties lately; hospitals and civilian structures have been bombed in reckless desperation, including a Red Crescent maternity infirmary and an annual trade fair venue.

The question is: will the world be a mute spectator to Iraq being turned into a graveyard?

Will the still surviving Iraqi children, women and men go without food, shelter, water and medicines only because succour cannot reach them in a state of belligerency? The UN must be able to take a humanitarian role in Iraq alongside the Red Cross and Red Crescent; for, they have a greater acceptability to the Iraqis than the hand-outs being doled out by the Anglo-American troops after they have captured a particular place to the humiliation of the besieged.

Simultaneously, the UNSC needs to be moved to pass a resolution seeking an early end to the war with a ceasefire brokered between the parties at once. This will help save lives on all sides besides preserving precious cultural and religious sites in Iraq which are the heritage of mankind. Above all, there is the question of civilised conduct in international affairs.

To our mind, there is an added rationale for all this to happen. So far the allied operations have drawn a blank on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. Is it not a big irony that the US is warning Syria against its alleged supply of conventional weapons to the Iraqi regime when it was suspected to be possessing WMD?