Allies Nab Key Areas of Basra

British tanks and troops forced their way into central Basra on Sunday, bolstering the allied presence in key portions of the city as children waved and young men crowded at intersections to gawk and gossip.

The incursion was the deepest yet during the two-week battle for Iraq’s second-largest city, but British military officials, while saying that many of President Saddam Hussein’s conventional forces appeared to have departed, cautioned that the allies did not yet fully control the southern city of 1.3 million.

Fighting reportedly continued Sunday afternoon in the Ashar neighborhood, a Baath Party stronghold, and there were signs of looting elsewhere as residents pushed handcarts loaded with windowsills, tubing, lumber and auto parts down wide boulevards.

There was little obvious jubilation, though several residents expressed relief that an end to the fighting seemed in sight.

“I feel very happy because we have freedom for the first time,” Ali Ibrahim Hussein, a 35-year-old teacher, said in the city center near a British tank and a large picture of the Iraqi president. “We don’t need food or water -- we need freedom.”

Heading out at dawn, several thousand British troops with 40 Challenger tanks and Warrior armored vehicles pushed into the city under the cover of helicopter gunships.

By noon, the British folded up their last remaining checkpoint on the road from Safwan into Basra, confident that the threat had been sharply diminished.

“We can safely say that the conventional military force has departed, although not completely from the region,” said Maj. Gen. Peter Wall, the chief of staff of British forces.

British troops expressed relief that resistance from Iraqi military and paramilitary forces seemed to be crumbling.

The last few days have seen fewer attacks on British raiding parties, suggesting that Iraqi ammunition was running low and that discipline among the Fedayeen Saddam militia forces was breaking down, leading to British troops’ decision to enter the city in force.

“We’re all pretty happy,” said Trooper Steven Neet of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. “If there was guerrilla warfare, it would have been worse for the soldiers. And if we’d gone in dropping bombs, [in terms of winning their] hearts and minds, we’d have lost half the battle.”

At major intersections in town, American Humvees with large microphones began broadcasting taped messages in Arabic: “We know that you are worried about the war. We will not stop until we rid you of Saddam Hussein’s regime. And that will not take long.”

Staff Sgt. Allen Mow with the Army’s 307th Psychological Operations Company said Basra residents seemed to be responding to the allies’ message.

“It’s going good,” he said, holding an M-16 as he stood beside his blaring vehicle. “We’re seeing a lot of hand waving and thumbs-up signs. People come up to me and think I speak Arabic because of the recording, though, and I have to explain that I don’t.”

The greatest damage appeared to have occurred near Basra’s southwestern edge, where the allies and the Iraqis had exchanged fire for days.

There were holes in the street Sunday where mortar shells had struck, and a large black statue of a fish was damaged by gunfire. The few vehicles other than tanks moving through the city seemed the worse for wear, including a charred bus that still managed to drive on, loaded with a wheelbarrow and industrial machinery.

“Today was the worst fighting since the war started,” said Haider Hamid, 23, a student. “The firing started at 6 in the morning, from their artillery and helicopters. They hit civilians. They’re destroying the place.”

The number of civilian casualties was not immediately reported, but Britain’s Defense Ministry said three soldiers were killed.

Allied forces reported today that a bombing Saturday in Basra had killed Ali Hassan Majid, a notorious cousin of Hussein known as “Chemical Ali” for his role in poison gas attacks on Kurds in 1988.

Maj. Andrew Jackson of Britain’s 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment told Associated Press that his superiors had confirmed the death of Majid. U.S. military officials had said Sunday that they had found the body of Majid’s bodyguard.

Hussein had entrusted Majid with the defense of southern Iraq against invading coalition forces.

U.S. and British officials had hoped that Basra’s largely Shiite Muslim population would rise up against Hussein’s regime, as had occurred shortly after Iraq was ousted from Kuwait in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

But that rebellion was quelled by Hussein’s forces, including Majid, prompting many Shiites to feel that they had been let down by the United States and its allies.

Ali Abdul Wahid, a 42-year-old laborer, said he considered himself lucky that neither he nor any of his friends had been killed over the last two weeks of fighting. Wahid, however, added that several of his neighbors had not been so lucky.

“My family and I have been very scared,” he said. “It’s been very nerve-racking.”

A number of Basra residents have reported being coerced by Baath supporters into fighting against the allied forces.

On Sunday morning, Walid Jaawal, an 18-year-old student, drove to a British checkpoint outside Basra, having been shot in the groin as he tried to drive out of the city. The Iraqi forces “didn’t want us to leave,” said his cousin, Sachet Kasim, a 25-year-old farmer who had accompanied him.

“They had Kalashnikov rifles and yelled, ‘Come back, fight with us!’ ” said Kasim, standing beside a pickup truck with a bullet hole in the windshield. “We stepped on the gas and got away.”