US troops surge into Baghdad

U.S. troops surged Thursday into the southern outskirts of Baghdad, attacking its international airport and waging four hours of skirmishes with Iraqi troops determined to protect their capital. Elsewhere, one American was killed by friendly fire, and U.S. officials said Iraqi forces appeared on the verge of collapse.\nTracer rounds raced through the blackened skies, and artillery fire could be heard near Saddam International Airport on the southwestern edge of Baghdad. Officers of the 3rd Infantry Division told an Associated Press reporter assigned to the unit that the attack on the airport was under way.\nIn a separate fight along a one-lane road on Baghdad's southern edge, U.S. troops engaged in a running battle for about six miles as Iraqi soldiers mingled with civilians or used them as human shields.\n"He's got a weapon ... Oh, there's civilians in the way," shouted Staff Sgt. Bryce Ivings as they battled one group of Iraqi fighters. "He's using these people as shields."\nBattling both the Iraqis and blistering heat that raised temperatures inside U.S. tanks to more than 100 degrees, one U.S. soldier died from friendly fire and three more were wounded by Iraqi fire. Three more U.S. soldiers collapsed from heat exhaustion.\nU.S. fighting vehicles destroyed nearly two dozen Iraqi tanks and armored personnel carriers while battling both Iraqi regulars and the Republican Guard. At one point, Iraqis launched an ambush from beside a mosque.\nOne unit of coalition troops came within 10 miles of the city center of Baghdad, but backed off because they were more interested in engaging Iraqi troops than holding territory.\nInside Baghdad, power was lost for the first time since the war began as explosions were heard on the outskirts of the city. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S.-led forces had not targeted the city's power grid.\nAn earlier aerial assault on the city targeted a row of tin shelters near the site of Baghdad's old airport, and special forces infiltrated some Iraqi command posts in the Baghdad area and secured strategic dams and bridges to guard them from sabotage.\n"We are getting closer and closer," said Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, a Central Command spokesman. "We will be in Baghdad within a matter of hours from when we decide to go."\nIn a resort area 56 miles north of Baghdad, a group of commandos raided the Thar Thar presidential palace.\nBrig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said the raiders landed by helicopter in the palace compound after suppressing anti-aircraft fire. The commandos found documents that will be reviewed by intelligence officers, Brooks said.\nHe added that the coalition forces still believe the Saddam regime could deploy weapons of mass destruction. "We take that very seriously," Brooks said.\nHis position was echoed by a spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who told his Cabinet Thursday not to expect a quick resolution to the war.\nAnother U.S. spokesman, Navy. Lt. Mark Kitchens, said U.S. forces are seeing "strong and credible signs that the Iraqi forces are being overwhelmed and will soon collapse."\nIraqi authorities vowed to make a stand, raising the possibility that some units had been pulled into Baghdad for urban warfare rather than risk a head-on clash outside the city.\nWhile some Marine units advanced toward the capital, others from the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines battled building to building with Iraqi fighters in Kut, a military town on the Tigris. Three Marines were wounded, and one later died.\nLt. Col. B.P. McCoy said 30 Iraqis were killed, including 10 to 15 gunned down when they attempted what he called a suicide charge against Marine tanks.\nTo the west, thousands of Army vehicles were crossing the Euphrates and moving toward Baghdad after an unsuccessful attempt by Iraqi forces to defend a bridge at Musayyib. Scores of blown-up Iraqi vehicles and dozens of bodies lined the roads as the U.S. troops passed by.\nU.S. defense officials said two Republican Guard divisions were badly weakened by the approaching Americans on Wednesday. U.S. forces incurred minimal losses in those battles, but the Iraqi regime vowed that resistance would stiffen.\n"Fight them with your hands, God will disgrace them," said a statement attributed to Saddam, and read by Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf on Iraqi satellite television.\n"We're now trying to exhaust them," al-Sahhaf said of the invading forces, "making them more tired until our leadership decides the time and method to clean our territory of their desecration."\nTwo U.S. aircraft went down Wednesday near the city of Karla, 50 miles south of Baghdad -- a Navy Hornet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter. U.S. officials said six soldiers aboard the Black Hawk were killed, while search and rescue operations were under way for the missing Navy pilot.\nA Patriot missile may have downed the U.S. Navy F-18C Hornet as it flew a mission over central Iraq, according to a news release issued at Central Command. The circumstances of the incident were under investigation, the release said.\nThe cause of the helicopter shooting had not yet been determined.\nDespite the successful push toward Baghdad, senior U.S. commanders sought to lower expectations of an imminent takeover of Saddam's capital.\nThe Americans may soon face a choice between continuing their advance into the city of 5 million, with the possibility of costly street fighting, or waiting for reinforcements while giving Iraqis a chance to challenge the regime themselves.\nJessica Lynch, the 19-year-old Army private freed from Iraqi captivity in a commando raid, was recuperating Thursday at a military hospital in Germany. She spoke by telephone for 15 minutes with her family in Palestine, W.Va.\nRandy Coleman, a military spokesman in West Virginia, said Lynch had fractures in both legs, and her family said one arm was injured. U.S. officials in Kuwait said she also had at least one gunshot wound.\nLynch, rescued Tuesday from an Iraqi hospital, shot several enemy soldiers after Iraqi forces ambushed her maintenance company, firing until she ran out of ammunition, The Washington Post reported.\nShe watched several soldiers in her unit die and was stabbed when Iraqi forces closed in, The Post quoted U.S. officials as saying. Pentagon officials and family members declined comment on the report.\nThe commandos who freed Lynch also retrieved 11 bodies from the Iraqi hospital; U.S. officials said some were believed to be Americans.\nAl-Sahhaf, the Iraqi information minister, told reporters Thursday that the bodies were indeed American soldiers, killed on the third and fourth day of the war.\nIn southern Iraq, British forces made their deepest incursion yet into the city of Basra, fighting to within four miles of the city center and setting up a base at a technical college. So far, the British have steered away from an all-out assault, hoping civilians in the city of 1.3 million rise up against Iraqi defense forces.