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2 hours, 26 minutes ago
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By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes struck Baghdad with bombs and missiles in unrelenting air attacks on Sunday after an Iraqi army officer killed four American soldiers in a suicide bombing.
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The driver of a car detonated the bomb on Saturday at a military checkpoint near the city of Najaf, about 100 miles south of Baghdad, when U.S. troops stopped the vehicle.
As first light broke over Baghdad explosions thudded around the edges of the capital, the latest round of ferocious pounding which has targeted government sites and repeatedly blasted Republican Guard positions defending the capital.
After a brief lull, 10 fresh explosions were heard south of Baghdad. Black smoke from oil trenches set alight by the Iraqis in an effort to throw U.S. missiles off course blanketed the southern and eastern approaches to the city of five million.
"We're hearing the distant thud of explosions," said Reuters witness Nadim Ladki as air raid sirens began blaring out.
Reuters television journalists said overnight bombing in central Baghdad had targeted a complex inside a presidential palace used by President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s powerful son, Qusay.
Iraq (news - web sites) warned that Saturday's suicide bombing -- the first targeting the U.S.-led invasion force since the war began more than a week ago -- was only the beginning of such attacks.
"Any method that stops or kills the enemy will be used," declared Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan. "What do they expect? The Arabs and Muslims are not allowed to develop missiles and bombs as powerful as theirs."
MEDALS FOR SUICIDE BOMBER
Iraqi television, still on air despite being targeted by air strikes, named the bomber as junior army officer Ali Hammadi al-Namani and said Saddam had awarded him two posthumous medals.
The suicide attack jolted U.S. troops and threatened to complicate Washington's defense of its supply lines from Kuwait as the invaders gird for a major battle for Baghdad.
"It looks and feels like terrorism," said Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. military Joint Staff's vice director for operations. "It doesn't affect the operation at large. But to protect our soldiers, it clearly requires great care."
U.S. Central Command said on Sunday a Marine was killed when he was hit by a Humvee vehicle during a firefight with Iraqi soldiers in southern-central Iraq. Another U.S. Marine drowned when the Humvee he was traveling in rolled into a canal.
Including the car bomb deaths, at least 32 U.S. soldiers have been killed since the war began, 104 wounded, seven taken prisoner and 15 are missing in action. The official British death toll is 20, only five of whom were killed in combat.
With the spearhead of the invasion force about 50 miles from Baghdad, American officers on the ground said there would be a pause in their advance of four to six days to consolidate supply lines.
Food rations have also been cut sharply for at least some front-line U.S. units and fuel use has been limited. But headquarters commanders said they were pressing on with the war.
U.S. forces just north of Najaf fired intense artillery and mortar barrages at Iraqi troops close to a bridge over the Euphrates river in the early hours of Sunday.
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