US forces were reportedly just six miles south of from Baghdad today, with Republican Guards advancing towards them, as the long-anticipated ground battle for Baghdad loomed. Leading elements of the US 3rd Infantry, which is making a two-pronged advance, were reported to be coming closer to the outskirts of the capital. Elements of four Iraqi Republican Guard divisions were said to be moving south.
One column of US forces was approaching Baghdad's international airport, which is around 20km (12 miles) south-west of the city centre. The column had pushed north-east from the Kerbala region, encountering less resistence than expected.
Just before 1200BST, there were reports that a series of explosions was heard coming from the airport. At a rate of more than one a minute, and as warplanes flew overhead, at least ten explosions were have reported to have resounded throughout the area.
Meanwhile, it emerged that US special forces had entered Iraqi installations near Baghdad, including a palace, overnight. Captain Frank Thorp, at Central Command in Qatar, told CNN television: "Just last night, special forces . . . were able to go into several important sites, one specifically a palace in the vicinity of Baghdad."
He said it was evidence that President Saddam's command was deterioating when "special forces were able to go in, take a look and come back out".
He added that the elite US troops had also succeeded in preventing Iraqi forces from blowing up several bridges and a dam.
Captain Thorp added: "We are engaging them, but we don't yet have any direct confrontation with the Republican Guard divisions as a whole."
Live television pictures from the battlefield showed an armoured US column engaging sporadic resistance but heading relentlessly north towards Baghdad.
Earlier, Pentagon officials said that Republican Guard reinforcements were moving out of the city towards the approaching US troops, apparently to replace the two divisions that the US said were destroyed by air assaults yesterday. There are six divisions of Republican Guard in total. The advancing forces are now deep inside the so-called "red line" zone, within which it is feared the Iraqis may use chemical weapons.
Despite the searing heat, US troops were wearing chemical protection suits over their body armour in case of an attack.
As the advance on the capital continued, there was growing speculation of a large-scale battle with Republican Guards. However, US commanders indicated they would imitate the tactics adopted by British forces at Basra for dealing with Baghdad.
US forces have praised the "impressive" British approach around Basra, in which a full-scale assault has been avoided in favour of a methodical wearing down of defences, with raids allied to a "hearts and minds" approach to the local population.
"In Baghdad, we will definitely use a lot of the effective techniques and utilise some of the larger strategic lessons we learned in the British efforts over Basra," a senior military official told the Washington Times today.
This morning, US artillery fired repeatedly at Iraqi positions to the north and east of Baghdad. Howitzers shelled the town of Numaniya, 40 miles south-east of the capital, where marines took a bridge over the river Tigris yesterday.
