MILITARY ACTION
In Basra, in southern Iraq, hundreds of residents trying to leave Sunday came under fire from Iraqi forces. British troops let the women and children proceed but—concerned about terrorism and enemy soldiers—tried to stop the men in the group. Chaos ensued. British officers said the only way to avoid this dilemma might be to engage in the house-to-house combat necessary to occupy the city.
Also in Basra, British forces killed a colonel with the Republican Guard and captured a general and four senior Iraqi Army officers.
Elsewhere in southern Iraq, a U.S. Marine UH-1 Huey helicopter crashed, killing three.
In An Nasiriyah, a U.S. raid secured buildings held by Iraqi troops that contained chemical decontamination equipment, weapons and ammunition.
To the north, en route to Baghdad, troops surrounded Najaf, where a suicide attack Saturday killed four U.S. troops. The Americans might enter the city soon to root out paramilitary forces.
At Camp Udairi, a U.S. military base in Kuwait, a man in civilian clothes drove a pickup truck into a group of soldiers standing outside a store. Fifteen soldiers sustained minor injuries requiring brief treatment or none at all.
The driver was shot and was undergoing surgery Sunday night. He was not identified by military officials beyond being a "third-party national"—not American or Kuwaiti.
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CASUALTIES TO DATE
U.S. military: 43 dead.
British military: 24 dead.
Iraqi forces: Unavailable.
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ELSEWHERE OVERSEAS
In Baghdad, an Iraqi army officer who killed four U.S. soldiers in a suicide attack was honored posthumously. The government reportedly gave his family 100 million dinars, the equivalent of $34,000—a fortune by Iraqi standards.
In Ankara, Turkey, government officials said they have reached agreement with the United States on the conditions under which Turkish troops could enter Iraq. More diplomacy is planned Monday to create procedures that would help prevent the need for a Turkish incursion.
In Kabul, Afghanistan, a rocket hit the headquarters of the international peacekeeping force. There were no reports of injuries; al-Qaida operatives were suspected.
In Jakarta, Indonesia, more than 100,000 anti-war protesters, some of them chanting that America is the "No. 1 terrorist," marched from the British Embassy to the U.S. Embassy. Some estimated the crowd was as large as 300,000.
In Peshawar, Pakistan, 100,000 peace demonstrators joined a rally organized by Islamic leaders.
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IN WASHINGTON
The Pentagon's top general said U.S. forces are searching a terrorist compound in northeastern Iraq that probably was the site for making the biological toxin ricin, traces of which had been found by police in London. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, said in a televised interview that Ansar al-Islam and al-Qaida worked on poisons at the site, including ricin. There is no treatment or antidote for ricin, which can take days to kill.
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AROUND THE USA
New billboards advocating an end to the war are being erected in major U.S. cities, but not in Crawford, Texas, near President Bush's ranch. Working Assets, a long-distance telephone company based in San Francisco and founded as a social-activist corporation, has tried to strike a pro-soldier, antiwar message with its slogan: "Support Our Troops—BRING THEM HOME NOW." Working Assets tried to buy billboard space in Crawford, but was turned down.
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WEATHER IN BAGHDAD
Monday
Partly cloudy
High temperature: 77
Low temperature: 51
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QUOTE
"I want our troops home and I want them home before more of them are killed."
_Robin Cook, a former member of Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet, who resigned in protest when it became clear that Britain would go to war
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For complete coverage of the war in Iraq, go to the Web site of the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau (www.krwashington.com).
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(c) 2003, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
Iraq