A recently taken image released yesterday shows a member of Britain's 42 Commando Royal Marines patrolling in the Iraqi port town of Umm Qasr. SOUTHERN IRAQ, (Reuters):
CONFUSED REPORTS emerged yesterday of a possible popular uprising against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the southern city of Basra as a severe sandstorm slowed the advance of United States invasion forces towards Baghdad.
Iraqi Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, denied the reports of an uprising in Basra which first came from British television reporters near the city.
However, British chief of staff Major General Peter Wall said there were "early indications" that a revolt might be under way in Iraq's second biggest city.
"We will be very keen to capitalise on it. We have a duty to reinforce that but we've got to make sure we do that in a sensible way and don't do anything hot-headed that we might come to regret," he told reporters at Central Command, battle headquarters for US-led forces, in Qatar.
On day six of the war launched by President George W. Bush to depose Saddam and take control of his alleged weapons of mass destruction, planes again hammered positions of the élite Republican Guard defending Baghdad.
Reuters correspondent Samia Nakhoul said several large explosions were heard after a day of sustained raids on the outskirts of the capital, which briefly knocked Iraqi state television off the air.
To the south, US armoured columns, slowed by blinding sandstorms, closed in for the decisive battle for the capital.
Reuters correspondents with US columns advancing on Baghdad said choking dust storms cut visibility to five metres (yards) in some places and brought convoys to a halt at times.
The Shi'ite people of Basra rose up against Saddam's Sunni-dominated government after the 1991 Gulf War, but their revolt was rapidly smashed as US forces stood aside. US-led forces had been hoping the Shi'ite south would welcome their invasion this time round.
Earlier, Colonel Chris Vernon, a British military spokesman in Kuwait, told a news conference that British forces around Basra had attacked precise Iraqi targets during the day and had captured a top official of Saddam's Baath party there.
He said the British did not want to launch a full-scale attack on the city for fear of inflicting huge civilian casualties. Instead, US and British commanders wanted locals to take matters into their own hands.
British forces south of Basra blocked an attempted breakout by up to 50 Iraqi tanks seeking to press southward from the edge of the city, a British naval commander said.
Two British soldiers were killed by 'friendly fire' near the city on Monday and two others were seriously injured, when their tank was mistakenly attacked by another British tank.
With the humanitarian situation in Basra causing mounting concern, British naval officers said they had finally secured Iraq's only deep-water port of Umm Qasr. A British navy ship was expected to dock by tomorrow, bringing the first seaborne aid for thousands of hungry civilians in southern Iraq.
