I read the Arab Times, which is a Kuwait newspaper. www.arabtimesonline.com Here is an article I read from it.
IRAQI leader Saddam Hussein may have been injured in the first night of US bombing on Baghdad, a US television network said tonight (AEDT).
Witnesses saw Saddam being carried away from the wreckage of the compound hit early yesterday with an oxygen mask over his face, according to intelligence sources quoted by ABC.
The intelligence sources said that the "lack of communication" between Saddam's office and his main command and government offices was being interpreted as meaning there was a problem with his health, ABC added.
The network said the sources were "optimistic" that something has happened to the Iraqi leader "but still very cautious about what his condition is."
Iraq has confirmed that one of Saddam's compounds had been hit in US bombing after the start of the war. But Iraq's Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf has insisted that the president and his family are "safe".
CHANTING anti-American slogans, tens of thousands of Muslims took to the streets of Middle Eastern cities after Friday prayers for a second consecutive day of demonstrations against US military action in Iraq.
The biggest protests were in the Yemeni capital, where three demonstrators and a policeman were killed in clashes. Equally fiery rallies in support of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein were held in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and in the West Bank.
Tens of thousands of angry demonstrators marched on the US embassy in Sanaa, chanting slogans against the United States, Israel, and Arab leaders as US and British forces continued their advance into Iraq.
"Leave office and open the door to jihad!" they shouted, calling for Arab governments to let them fight a holy war alongside Iraqi forces. "Death to America! Death to Israel!".
A security source in the capital said that besides the four deaths, 18 people were injured and dozens more detained.
Thousands of demonstrators clashed with security forces in the southern Jordanian town of Maan, an Islamist stronghold, with a history of violent anti-government protests.
Chanting "With our blood and our soul we will support you, Saddam", they rained a barrage of stones on line of police lines, who replied with a volley of tear gas, witnesses said.
One policeman was reportedly injured after a tear gas canister was hurled back at him.
Hundreds of people also took to the streets of the capital, Amman, and the northern city of Irbid, after the weekly Friday prayers despite a government ban on unauthorised street rallies.
The protests were relatively peaceful but minor scuffles broke out when club-toting riot police fired tear-gas grenades to push back more than 1000 demonstrators who tried to march on the Israeli embassy in the capital.
Police also used force in Cairo, dispersing with water cannons and baton charges several hundred protesters chanting anti-American slogans outside the Egyptian capital's historic Al-Azhar mosque.
Inside the mosque complex, as many as 4000 worshippers chanted "Down with America," "Allah Akbar (God is great)," and "Victory to Iraq".
Some clambered onto the roof of Al-Azhar to hurl stones, shoes and rubbish at the security forces. Police said 10 people were injured in the clashes.
A thousand demonstrators then marched from the Al-Azhar district to the central Tahrir Square, by which time their numbers had swelled to more than 3000.
In the Bahraini capital, police fired at least 10 tear-gas canisters at a group of about 300 youths trying to hurl stones at the US embassy, despite yesterday's appeal for calm by Bahrain's King Hamad.
In the West Bank town of Nablus, some 5000 Palestinians carrying Iraqi flags and pictures of President Saddam Hussein marched through the streets after curfew, chanting slogans such as "America, the mother of terrorism".
Accusing Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan's King Abdullah II and Saudi King Fahd of being "collaborators" with the United States, they also shouted nostalgic slogans for the late Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, who fought a disastrous 1967 war against Israel.
In Tulkarem and Jenin, south of Nablus, thousands marched through the streets shouting support for Iraq and attacking Arab leaders for allowing the United States and its allies to use their territory.
Some 200 people also demonstrated against the war in Bethlehem in the southern West Bank, shouting, "Saddam, fire chemical weapons at Tel Aviv".
In occupied east Jerusalem Israeli police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse about 300 Palestinians shouting their willingness to die for Saddam.
Palestinians also rallied in the refugee camps of Ain Helweh in southern Lebanon, Yarmouk near Damascus and Wihdat in Amman.
In Ain Helweh, about 2000 vented their anger on US President George W Bush, British Prime Minister and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"Death to Bush, death to Blair, you are assassins like your friend Sharon," chanted the protesters, some of whom carried pictures of Saddam Hussein and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. They also accused Mubarak of being an American spy.
The national flags of the three countries were ceremoniously burnt, while those of Germany and France, the leading Western opponents of the war, flew between the Iraqi and Palestinian flags.
In Beirut, police used water cannon to stop students marching on the US Embassy, while about 200 members of a pro-Nasser group staged a two-hour sit-in in front of the Qatari embassy. US-led coalition forces have set up their forward command position in the Gulf state.
IRAQI Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf acknowledged today that one of Saddam Hussein's homes was hit in yesterday's bombing, though he said no-one was hurt.
"They rocketed the residence of his household," he said. "But thank God they are all safe," he told reporters in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.
Sahaf said that the Iraqis had destroyed two coalition helicopters in fighting that began with a bombardment of the capital yesterday.
He also denied that the southern Iraqi city of Umm Qasr had been taken by the US-led troops.
"They are superpower of villains. They are superpower of Al Capone," he said. "We will not allow them to get out of this quagmire which we trapped them in. They will see their end there."
Standing next to him in military uniform was Interior Minister Mahmoud Diab al-Ahmed, carrying a Kalashnikov and wearing a flak jacket with a knife in the pocket, a pistol on his hip, and carrying Kalashnikov magazines.
"Some of you might may be wondering why do I have a Kalashnikov in my hand and wearing a flak jacket. Because we have all in Iraq pledged never to relinquish our weapons until the day of victory."
Sahaf also denied that the television images of Iraqis surrendering were accurate and argued that the reports were fabricated.
"Those are not Iraqi soldiers at all," he said. "Where did they bring them from?"
IRAQI President Saddam Hussein is offering cash prizes of tens of thousands of dollars for soldiers who down "enemy" planes and kill or capture invading US-led troops, the state news agency said today.
"Any valiant Iraqi fighter who shoots down an enemy warplane will be rewarded with the amount of 100 million dinars ($56,495)" in line with new orders by the Iraqi leader, INA reported.
"Anyone who captures an enemy soldier will be rewarded with 50 million dinars and anybody who kills an enemy soldier will be rewarded with 25 million dinars," it said.
US Marines have raised the Stars and Stripes flag over the new port town of Umm Qasr just over the Iraqi border from Kuwait.
Umm Qasr was taken after British Royal Marine Commandos troops were called in to break the fierce Iraqi resistance which pinned down American troops for two hours.
The US aims to use the modern port as an entry point for humanitarian aid into Iraq.
The old port of Umm Qasr is one mile from the new port of Umm Qasr, which has yet to be captured.
British marines are co-ordinating the assault on Umm Qasr.
British military spokesman Colonel Chris Vernon said the city was not yet entirely under the control of the invading force.
As they entered Umm Qasar, the soldiers passed two blazing cars and the bodies of two men in civilian clothes lying on the road.
A third man drenched in blood sat nearby on the ground surrounded by women who flagged down a Marine medical team to come to his aid.
IRAQ said it had shot down a US or British fighter plane over its territory today.
A military spokesman quoted by the official Iraqi news agency said an Iraqi missile hit the plane at 0255 GMT (1355 AEDT) while it was carrying out an air raid, and that the aircraft crashed in Kuwait.
A US Marine has been killed in Iraq, becoming the first reported combat death of the war, defence officials said today.
The slain soldier, of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, was moving in the ground assault in southern Iraq, said Lieutenant Colonel Neal Peckham, a British military spokesman in Kuwait.
Peckham said he had no further details.
MSNBC cable network reported that the soldier was felled by Iraqi gunfire during the advance on the Rumeila oil field.
The incident came hours after eight British and four US soldiers died in a US Marine helicopter crash.
A British military spokesman said the crash was an accident.
American and British troops encountered both hostile fire and white flags in their race across the desert, with some 200 Iraqi soldiers surrendering to the US 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit just over an hour after it crossed the border from northern Kuwait.
Holding back on a massive air assault, the allied force has been using pinpoint airstrikes and a lightning-fast ground assault as efforts intensify to get Iraqi soldiers, even the Republican Guard units considered loyal to Saddam Hussein, to give up.
Opening the ground action, Marine expedition and Army special forces were sent into Iraq to put forces in a better position to protect the oil-rich Basra region after Iraqis set a small number of oil wells on fire, military officials said.
Later, the bulk of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division and the Marine Corps' 1st Expeditionary Force rumbled across the border into Iraq.
Many of the troops passed burning oil wells that sent plumes of acrid, black smoke into the dusty desert sky.
Small numbers of US and British special forces were operating surreptitiously in other parts of the country and US war planes stepped up attacks on Iraqi air defences in the north and south in hopes of making it easier and safer for coalition aircraft when the massive aerial assault begins, officials said.
IRAN's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei today denounced the US-led attack on neighbouring Iraq as "satanic" and called on Iranians to get ready for an economic and cultural war.
Khamenei, whose country figured with Iraq and North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" by US President George W Bush last year, called for an "immediate" halt to the day-old war, in a message for the Iranian New Year.
"Today it is America which is alone," he said, condemning the "arrogance and prejudice of American rulers and their belligerency."
He stressed, however, that he did not support Saddam Hussein's "dictatorial" Iraqi regime, which fought a bloody war with Iran from 1980 to 1988.
Iran defends not Saddam but "the Iraqi nation, and believes that the future of Iraq must be decided only by the Iraqi nation".
Khamenei urged young Iranians "to strengthen their resolution" in the new year.
"Although we may have no military war, we will definitely have a political and economic and, especially, a cultural war."
SCORES of Iraqi soldiers surrendered to British troops in the south of Iraq today, raising hopes that Iraqis all over the country will follow suit.
Within a few hours of crossing into southern Iraq, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit encountered 200 or more Iraqi troops seeking to surrender.
One group of 40 Iraqis marched down a two-lane road toward the Americans and gave up. They were told to lie face down on the ground, then were searched by Marines
AS many as 30 oil wells in Iraq have been deliberately set on fire by Iraqi forces in the south of the country, British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said today on BBC television.
"The latest estimate I received before I left the Ministry of Defence this morning was that perhaps as many as 30 oil wells had been set on fire deliberately," Hoon said.
"Put into context, that's perhaps not as bad as we feared, because there are many hundreds of oil wells in the southern part of Iraq," he said.
"Although we feared there might be a systematic effort by the Iraqi authorities to destroy all of those wells, that so far at any rate has not been the case," he said.
Hoon said allied forces that surged into southern Iraq from Kuwait overnight were "securing the Fao peninsula... a vital target" to prevent an Iraqi attempt to trigger a massive oil slick in the Gulf.
"In a number of areas in the south, the Iraqis are putting up a fight," he said, adding that resistance was being met outside the Gulf port city of Umm Qasr, south of Basra
PROTESTERS lit fires in Sydney and staged a "die in" in north Queensland as another wave of anti-war protests swept Australia today.
As news of the push into Iraq by the United States and its British and Australian allies gathered pace, peace activists maintained their anger.
For the second successive day the biggest turnout came in Melbourne where two rallies attracting around 25,000 protesters blocked city streets.
The howl of a mock air raid siren provided the backdrop to a lunchtime rally in which 5,000 protesters marched through Melbourne's CBD.
The noon rally, organised by the Victorian Trades Hall Council, was followed by another at the State Library of Victoria in the evening which drew an estimated 20,000.
Both rallies heard from 16-year-old Evin Ishmail, an Iraqi Kurdish refugee who told demonstrators of the terror she endured during the last Gulf War.
"In the 1991 Gulf war I remember the tragic experiences that I saw - thousands of innocent dead people on the ground, people seeking refuge, families being split apart and our whole nation being destroyed," she said.
Australian Education Union state president Mary Bluett said the beginning of the bombing yesterday had a huge impact on Australian children as well as Iraqi children.
"Their faith in adults has been shaken," Ms Bluett said.
In Sydney, anti-war protesters set fire to newspapers belonging to a south-west Sydney newsagency and spray-painted "Kill Bush", "Kill Howard" and "Kill Blair" on walls nearby.
An employee of the newsagency in suburban Condell Park said around 700 newspapers were set alight soon after 4am.
Also in Sydney, refugee advocates called on protesters to disrupt Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock's speech at Harmony Day celebrations in Sydney.
The Refugee Action Coalition (RAC) said it aimed to raise awareness of the treatment of refugees seeking asylum in Australia.
"We must continue to take a stand against the racism of the Howard government now launching war on Iraq, while the war on refugees in Australia continues on our own soil," said RAC spokesman Ian Rintoul.
In Queensland, protesters staged a "die-in" outside a naval base in Cairns.
About 150 people lay down outside the base pretending to be dead in what organisers described as a campaign of non-violent resistance.
Peace By Peace spokesman Michael Martin said the "bodies" represented the casualties from both sides of the conflict and among Iraq's civilian population.
"We wanted to send a message to the Australian government that we object to our defence forces being used in what we consider to be an illegal and immoral war," he said.
But Cairns-based Labor senator Jan McLucas said protesters should target the government, not defence personnel or facilities.
"Defence families and friends of defence personnel posted to the Gulf will be under significant emotional stress," she said.
Kuwaiti forces fire Patriots to thwart Iraqi missile
KUWAIT CITY, March 21 - Kuwaiti defense forces fired Patriot missiles Friday to intercept an incoming Iraqi missile attack targeted at an air base in northern Kuwait, a military official said.
"A total of three Patriots were fired by Kuwaiti Air Defense batteries to intercept and destroy the incoming Iraqi missile" aimed at the Ali al-Salem air base, Colonel Yussif al-Mulla said in a statement to the official KUNA news agency.
Warning sirens sounded around 1005 GMT and three explosions were heard shortly afterwards, an AFP correspondent reported.
The colonel said the explosions were the sound of the three Patriots destroying the Iraqi missile.
Ten Iraqi missiles had already landed on the emirate in the first 24 hours of the US-led war launched Thursday to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, causing no damage or casualties.
