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Loud explosions rocked Baghdad early Sunday while US army troops and Marines are tightening their grip on the Iraqi capital from different directions.
Explosions rocked Baghdad as Iraqi troops, members of President Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen militia and teenage soldiers patrolled streets to protect the capital from another incursion by American forces.
US Central Command spokesman Jim Wilkinson said on Sunday that between 2,000 and 3,000 Iraqis were killed when US infantry moved through southern Baghdad.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi military said in a statement broadcast by Iraqi TV that Iraqi forces inflicted heavy losses on the US-led coalition troops on Saturday.
The Iraqi forces destroyed eight tanks, 11 armored personnel carriers and shot down a fighter jet and a helicopter, said the statement.
On Sunday evening, Iraqi TV reported that the Iraqi government would impose a travel ban out of Baghdad from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. effective as of Sunday evening as the US-British forces are closing in on the capital.
On Sunday, a US military official said the first US military airplane landed at Saddam International Airport, which is of strategic significance to either side of the war.
The official from the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division's aviation brigade said a C-130 military transport aircraft landed at about 8 p.m. local time (1600 GMT).
US forces said they seized the airport, some 20 km (12 miles) southwest of the Iraqi capital center, on Friday. The Iraqi side repeatedly denied that the airport is in coalition control. Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said Al-Sahaf said late Saturday that at least 300 US soldiers have been killed in the battle at the airport.
In the south, three British soldiers were killed in the attack against the second largest city of Basra on Sunday.
Earlier Royal Marine Commandos joined the offensive on Basra after British tanks and armored vehicles pushed their way into the city. The Britons have been trying to take Basra in the past two weeks.
In the north, 18 Kurdish fighters were killed Sunday by "friendly fire" when their convoy was attacked by a US warplane.
Hoshyar Zebari, spokesman of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), told reporters that the number of Kurdish fighters killed was 18 and 45 others were also injured in the bombing.
In Qatar, the US Central Command acknowledged that its warplanes might have attacked a Kurdish convoy in northern Iraq.
"Coalition aircraft may have engaged special operations and friendly Kurdish ground forces approximately 30 miles (50 kilometers) southeast of Mosul," said a statement.
It gave no further details, adding that the incident was under investigation.
US forces and Kurdish militia fighters are fighting shoulder-to-shoulder in northern Iraq, where thousands of US troops have been deployed to set up a northern front for the imminent encirclement of Baghdad.
Kurdish fighters have been pushing toward two major northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk in the past days after seizing several positions abandoned by Iraqi troops which retreated under relentless bombings by US warplanes.
US President George W. Bush meets British Prime Minister Tony Blair, his firm ally in the ongoing war against Iraq, in Belfast on Monday to discuss postwar Iraq.
Differences have emerged between the two countries over how long it should be before Iraq is handed over to an interim Iraqi administration, and how powerful a US-led group of generals and former diplomats should be to effectively run the country.
According to media reports, British Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien recently outlined proposals in which a US team headed by retired general Jay Garner would advise and make decisions about running basic services in the "few weeks" after the war in Iraq, along with a UN commissioner.
The general would then hand the power over to an interim Iraqi authority "as quickly as possible" before a UN-backed conference of Iraqi groups could lay the path to elections in the country.
But Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, appeared to sideline the United Nations on Friday when she said the coalition "would have the leading role" in rebuilding Iraq.
The Pentagon has begun outlining proposals for postwar Iraq, putting the United States in charge, at least for the first three months.
Analysts said Britain and the United States are expected to decide how they would perform during the next phase of diplomatic tussle over Iraq despite the fact that the war in Iraq is still under way.
(Xinhua News Agency April 7, 2003)
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