Iraq Cuts Off Fuel Sales : Hometown of Saddam Hit by Bombers

As allied bombers struck deep into the interior of Iraq today, the Baghdad government, plagued by chronic shortages of almost all staples, suspended the sale of heating oil, gasoline and other fuels to civilians.

The move came amid reports that allied warplanes pounded key Iraqi positions throughout the country, including President Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, 90 miles north of the capital.

But that was only one of many targets. The allies, hitting from both the air and the sea, unleased yet another day of pounding on Iraqi troops, including the elite Republican Guard, which have been under a 24-hour barrage for days now.

The battleship Missouri opened up its big guns again overnight, using the mammoth 16-inch shells to knock out an artillery battery in Kuwait. The ships guns were used in combat Sunday for the first time since the Korean War.

An Iraqi convoy of an estimated 25 trucks was knocked out overnight by allied jets, while A-6 attack planes knocked out two Silkworm rocket launchers.

In Baghdad, the halt in the sale of heating oil and other fuels apparently came so swiftly that residents were not allowed to stock up against the winter cold.

At one point during the raids today, a bomb detonated an Iraqi storage facility into a huge ball of flame that could be seen for miles.

“I think we just woke up the whole of Iraq,” one pilot was quoted as saying as he looked down on the inferno.

On the ground, the allies and the Iraqis traded occasional artillery rounds and small-arms fire. A U.S. military official said today that the number of Iraqi prisoners had increased to more than 800, including 25 who gave themselves up near the coastal town of Khafji, the site of a hard-fought battle last week.

And while the allies continued to maintain complete dominance of the skies, 10 Iraqi planes did manage to take off and flee to Iran. According to Maj. Gen. Robert B. Johnston, the chief of staff for Operation Desert Storm, there are now 110 Iraqi planes sitting on Iranian runways. The Iranians have pledged to uphold their neutrality by keeping the planes there until the end of the conflict.

Johnston said he believed the majority of the planes flying to Iran today were fighter jets and, as is almost always the case when Iraqi jets flee, he said their escape was simply a matter of turning on their radar and waiting until allied fighters were not around.

“It isn’t a difficult technique,” he said.

Earlier, Group Capt. Naill Irving, a spokesman for the British, said that one-third of the key bridges in Iraq had been destroyed and that many others were severely damaged.