The car explosion about 11 miles southwest of the Hadithah Dam in Iraq appeared to be a suicide-homicide attack, according to military officials. The driver detonated the bomb just as a pregnant woman began to scream and exited the car. The driver and woman were also killed, and two soldiers were wounded.

"Whether this woman was coerced or not, it is now impossible to say," U.S. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks told reporters in Doha, Qatar.

"She clearly left the vehicle in distress and clearly showed signs of being pregnant. We are not surprised the regime would do this, whether voluntarily or not."

After the highly publicized killings of women in children in a van that tried to run a checkpoint Monday, it was revealed, to much less publicity, that Saddam Hussein's goons had forced the driver and civilians.

'Terrorist Actions'

Brooks said the soldiers were approaching the car when it exploded. "These kind of behaviors have been exhibited all over the battlefield. They are terroristic, that is the only way to characterize them. These are not military actions. They are terrorist actions."

Last week, a man posing as a taxi driver who carried out a homicide-suicide attack at a military checkpoint near An Nasiriyah, south of Baghdad, killed four soldiers.

"We have seen a number of examples that provide us clear evidence this regime will take civilians, will take women, will take children and use them to lead an attack," Brooks said today.

Coalition forces, meanwhile, today secured control of Saddam International Airport in overnight fighting. The airport is "the gateway to the future of Iraq," said Brooks. The airport is located 12 miles from downtown Baghdad. Brooks said troops have renamed the facility Baghdad International Airport.

In Baghdad, bombing began about 2 a.m. today, the Muslim "holy" day.

CNN reported that Iraqis tried to prevent the coalition's advance using what the Army called "suicide buses": dump trucks, pickup trucks and buses carrying Iraqi soldiers firing their weapons as their vehicles advanced on U.S. troops. It said U.S. tanks easily destroyed the Iraqi vehicles.

CENTCOM today said it was trying to confirm a report by U.S. Marines that about 2,500 Iraqi Republican Guard troops had surrendered southeast of Baghdad.

"We have encountered forces that have surrendered along the way. They are usually parts of units, not whole units, at this point. But we believe as the situation continues to unfold, that may change." CENTCOM has said it has more than 4,500 POWs in custody.

Concerns

The two key concerns among U.S. military planners: that Republican Guard and other diehard supporters of dictator Saddam Hussein might regroup for street fighting in Baghdad, and that the regime will use chemical weapons as a last-ditch defense.

"Things are progressing well. But I'd like to caution all that there still is much more work to be done," Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news briefing Thursday. "And there's no doubt that some of it's going to be very, very difficult."

"Let there be no doubt the most dangerous fighting may well be ahead of us," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at the same briefing. But he noted troops have "now arrived near the regime's doorstep" and are closer to the center of the city than many American suburban commuters are to theirs.

On the diplomatic front, European ministers greeted with cautious enthusiasm remarks made by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in Brussels.

Powell, in Europe for the first time since the start of the military campaign to disarm the Baghdad regime, said he was pleased there was a "receptive attitude" to Washington's proposal to boost NATO's presence in Iraq.

"The important thing is that no one raised any objection to that possibility," said Powell after a day of meetings with European Union and NATO foreign ministers at the alliance's Brussels headquarters.

NATO officials went further, saying most of the bloc's 19 members backed a muscular role for the alliance in Iraq. One told UPI anonymously: "The tide is flowing strongly in favor of intervention."

Copyright 2003 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Bush Administration

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