Saddam's Son's Palace Bombed

March 31, 2003

Coalition warplanes have bombed the palace of Saddam Hussein's son Qusay.

TV footage showed plumes of smoke pouring from the bombed-out palace in Baghdad.

Air raids have been ongoing through the day with coalition warplanes screaming low over the capital, witnesses said.

Attacks appear to be focused on the south of the city and in the west, where the Saddam International Airport is based.

Six large explosions echoed around the city at lunchtime. An overnight attack by B-52, B-1 and B-2 bombers targeted the Ministry of Information in one of the heaviest bombardment of the campaign.

The new attacks came as US Marines launched a dawn raid to capture the infamous Iraqi general "Chemical Ali", reports say.

Ali Hassan al-Majeed, dubbed "Chemical Ali" by the Americans for his role in overseeing the gassing of Kurdish villagers in 1988, is believed to be in the town of Shatra, north of Nasiriyah.

Soldiers went into the town on Monday morning to take out leading Iraqi officials, a Reuters correspondent said.
Ali Hassan al-Majeed

He is believed to be with Ba'ath Party officials who are directing paramilitary attacks on American supply lines.

Marine officers stormed the town with bombers, helicopters, tanks and precision-guided bombs.

Reuters correspondent Sean Maguire said the Marine unit he was with had retraced its steps back south down Highway 7 to Shatra, about 20 miles north of Nasiriyah, to deal with hostile forces that had been bypassed on their rapid advance.

"US planes dropped precision-guided bombs on four targets in Shatra," Maguire said.

"Tanks and armoured personnel carriers then moved in force to the edge of the town while Huey helicopter gunships raked the rubble-strewn target sites with heavy machinegun fire."

In Nasiriyah, where fighting has been fierce for a week, US Marines secured buildings held by an Iraqi infantry division that contained large caches of weapons and chemical decontamination equipment.

In southern Iraq, one British soldier has been killed in the al Faw penninsula and several more injured as fighting continues to secure Basra.

US troops are also reported to have surrounded Najaf.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-12277759,00.html