Noriega Loyalists Hit Back at U.S. Military as Chaos Grips Streets : Panama: Just-installed vice president escapes an assassination attempt. Ousted dictator remains at large as 2,000 more American troops are due.

Fighters loyal to Gen. Manuel Antonio A. Noriega launched a bold daylight attack Friday on the headquarters of U.S. military forces and tried to assassinate the vice president installed by the United States.

On the third day of the U.S. occupation, Panama City was near anarchy. Refugees pleaded for food and medicine as waves of looters ransacked stores.

U.S. troops searched residential areas of the capital and other parts of this West Virginia-sized nation for Noriega, but found no trace of the ousted dictator they were sent in to capture.

Panamanians seemed to greet the U.S. troops with some enthusiasm, but many residents of this city, racked by savage looting and littered with debris, were too frightened to go out on the streets.

Some said they had set up their own defense patrols to protect themselves and their neighbors amid the chaos, which reigned in both lower- and middle-class neighborhoods.

In Washington, Pentagon officials said U.S. troops had seized 10,000 weapons, mostly made in the East Bloc, in three separate caches in the city. Lt. Gen. Tom Kelly, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the discoveries “little short of astonishing” and said they led to questions about what Noriega’s plans may have been.

A Pentagon source said 2,000 more soldiers would be airlifted to Panama, bolstering the force of 24,000 already there, and President Bush said the troops would stay “to do what is necessary.”

The U.S.-installed first vice president, Ricardo Arias Calderon, was leaving the National Assembly when members of pro-Noriega “Dignity Battalions” shot at his car. Arias was uninjured, but two of his aides were wounded, said Arias aide Teni de Obaldia.

The fighting around the U.S. Southern Command in Quarry Heights, on the western edge of Panama City, started about 11:25 a.m. and lasted an hour, with mortar blasts shaking the U.S. headquarters as dozens of Noriega supporters attacked buildings nearby.

Military officials at Rodman Naval Station, just across the Panama Canal, said they had no information on casualties.

The Panamanian Supreme Court, about a mile to the southeast, was in flames, and sporadic fighting swirled through other parts of the chaotic city, once a major international financial center but now a shell of itself.

Only several blocks away from Southern Command stands the Panama Canal Commission headquarters. The headquarters itself was not hit, but surrounding buildings including a warehouse were.

Plumes of brown and black smoke could be seen from Rodman at mid-afternoon, and U.S. Army helicopters flew over the area, apparently searching for the attackers.

Later Friday, U.S. troops fired shells and threw tear gas at a residence adjacent to the Spanish news agency EFE where a friend of Noriega reportedly lived in a wealthy neighborhood.

Seven EFE journalists darted to the floor during the 20-minute attack, which shook the office with three loud explosions and could be seen from the Associated Press office 150 yards away.

After the assault, neighbors with sledgehammers broke into the residence and looted the house, which was apparently empty.

Late Friday, the Pentagon updated its count of U.S. soldiers killed in the assault so far to 21, along with two female dependents. It said 221 were wounded and two were missing since the invasion began. An American civilian, CBS News producer Jon Meyersohn, also was missing after being abducted Wednesday from the Marriott Hotel.

U.S. officials said 122 Panamanian soldiers were killed and 45 wounded.

But Dr. Elmer Miranda, deputy director of Santo Tomas Hospital in Panama City, said there were 200 bodies in the basement and that he heard from a colleague of 60 more dead in Gorgas Hospital, run by the U.S. Southern Command.

Miranda appealed to Latin American nations and Europe to send medical equipment because “the United States is only giving us bullets.”

Thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting took cover in soccer stadiums, churches and schools.

“They had water, but we’re very short of food,” said a Red Cross worker who like others refused to give his name for fear of reprisals.

He said U.S. Army units were handing out rations but that it was not enough.

Meantime, Noriega supporters in one district said they were running out of ammunition and hope. Several pro-Noriega bands surrendered in western Panama on Friday.

But the dramatic attack on the very center of the U.S. military area and the effort to kill Arias showed that U.S. efforts to achieve control were falling short.

About 200 reporters who arrived at Howard Air Force Base overnight were not allowed into the city because military officials said they could not guarantee their safety, an indication that U.S. military forces are not in as much control of Panama City as they have been claiming.

U.S. Army Gen. Maxwell Thurman, chief of the Southern Command, told reporters that the $1-million bounty on Noriega’s head is providing “useful bits of information” toward his capture. Thurman did not elaborate.

Commenting on the day’s attacks, Thurman said he was “surprised” by the strength of forces that remain loyal to Noriega. The fighting is “a little bit greater than I expected at the onset.”

“Until we locate (Noriega), he will be a guiding hand,” he said. He added that U.S. forces could expect at least five more days of mopping-up operations, putting the occupation past Christmas.

Thurman said the so-called Dignity Battalions, a paramilitary force loyal to Noriega, continued operating and had been joined by members of Noriega’s defense forces, who had shed their uniforms and were now roving the city in civilian clothing.

Each of the battalions is composed of about 300 people, Thurman said, and there may be up to half a dozen battalions, totaling 1,800 people.

But he said the battalions were now operating in groups of 10 to 12 people each.

“It is organized, clearly organized,” Thurman said of the gangs.

U.S. airplanes made occasional bombing runs on San Miguelito, about six miles northeast of the city center, which has been a center of pro-Noriega resistance. U.S. helicopters and airplanes flew low over the city.

Snipers were reported in many areas of the city. Gunshots, many of them fired by shop owners and private armed guards trying to prevent looting, rang through virtually every neighborhood. Two wounded men lay in a parking lot behind the AP office.

The loyalists also attacked U.S. soldiers at the secret police headquarters and the building that houses Panama’s transportation department in Ancon, adjacent to the U.S. headquarters compound at Quarry Heights.

But along the border with Costa Rica, members of Noriega’s defense forces abandoned their posts in the province of Chiriqui. Costa Rican official Juan Barrantes said the loyalists scattered after rumors spread that U.S. troops were on their way.

“It’s clear that the gringos are in control of everything. We don’t have the strength they have,” said a pro-Noriega municipal official in San Miguelitos.

On Friday morning, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Terry Jones told reporters that according to the latest statistics, 1,484 members of the Panamanian defense forces had been captured.

That, however, left thousands of other members unaccounted for and possibly remaining loyal to Noriega, making prospects dim for a quick end to the fighting.

The Organization of American States said in Washington it “deeply deplored” the U.S. invasion and called for withdrawal of American forces. The resolution was approved by a vote of 20 to 1, with the United States opposed and six members abstaining.

President Bush formally notified Congress of his reasons for the military assault, as required by the War Powers Act whenever military force is used.

In his message, Bush accused Noriega of directing “vicious and brutal acts” on Americans and asserted that the lives and welfare of 35,000 U.S. citizens in Panama had been “increasingly at risk.”

“Although most organized opposition has ceased, it is not possible at this time to predict the precise scope and duration of the military operations or how long the temporary increases of U.S. forces in Panama will be required,” Bush said.

Reports of sightings of Noriega poured in across Panama City.

Panama City, a semitropical city of 1 million, was littered with garbage, glass and rubble as thousands of looters plundered stores, stealing air conditioners, televisions, videocassette recorders, refrigerators and cars.

The sacking of hundreds of stores went on unabated despite a curfew ordered by the U.S.-backed President Guillermo Endara, who was inaugurated early Wednesday at the onset of the invasion. There were no police on the streets; they are members of Noriega’s defense forces, and even those who might want to work faced the threat of retaliation.

Endara conceded in an interview with ABC-TV that he cannot safely walk the streets but claimed he had the “wholehearted support” of the people.

Hundreds of Panamanians waited in lines outside supermarkets and gasoline stations, but many stayed inside, afraid of the fighting.

U.S. Army soldiers cordoned off the Nicaraguan, Cuban and Libyan embassies following reports that Noriega might seek political asylum. There was also a report that he had been seen on Contadora, a resort island 40 miles from Panama City once frequented by the shah of Iran.