British forces fight in Basra

NEAR BASRA, Iraq -- Led by more than three dozen tanks and armored cars, British forces battled toward the center of Basra on Sunday in their biggest incursion yet into Iraq's second-largest city.\nBritish officials said they had managed to set up base at a former college inside Basra's city limits, but did not yet control the city of 1.3 million. The Defense Ministry said three soldiers were killed Sunday, bringing the total number of Britons killed since the start of war to 30.\nGroup Capt. Al Lockwood, spokesman for British forces in the Persian Gulf, said the advance was designed to "reassure the people of Basra that we're there and we're coming to liberate the city."\n"Their days are limited," Brigadier Graham Binns, commander of the Desert Rats, told the Press Association. "Our intelligence tells us that morale is low among the defenders of the city, that the population can't wait to see us and the opposition, such as it is, is uncoordinated."\nBritish and Iraqi forces have been locked in a battle for control of the southern Iraq city since the war began. Until Sunday, coalition forces had largely limited their efforts to raids and sorties from the outskirts of town.\nAccording to British press pool reports, commanders said the bulk of Iraqi forces may have fled Basra a full 48 hours before the latest incursion.\n"We can safely say that the conventional military force has departed, although not completely from the region. We've still got a little bit more of that to deal with further north," said Maj. Gen. Peter Wall, the chief of staff of British forces at Central Command.\nLeading the British advance was the 7th Armored Brigade, the "Desert Rats," which killed an unknown number of paramilitary fighters and took others prisoner as the unit pushed in from the west. They were joined by troops from the 3rd Armored coming up from the south.\nLockwood said troops intended only to set up checkpoints inside Basra. But they pressed on deep\ninto the city with a column of more than 40 armored personnel carriers and tanks after finding "the level of resistance was low."\nA day earlier, coalition aircraft bombed a compound in Basra belonging to one of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's most notorious associates -- Gen. Ali Hassan al-Majid, who is known as "Chemical Ali" for ordering a poison gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds in 1988. Lockwood said British troops will investigate the compound to determine whether the general was killed.\n"We suspect he probably was killed in that strike," Wall said. "A large part of his entourage, including his body guards, have been reported killed."\nLockwood told reporters the decision to move into Basra was based partly on Arab press reports that Basra leaders wanted to surrender the city. He also said reports of looting -- a sign of weakening Baath Party control -- prompted the British to act.\nLockwood said it appeared local Baath leadership had collapsed.\nRoyal Scots Dragoon Guards spokesman Capt. Roger MacMillan said troops had also blown up a headquarters of the Fedayeen paramilitary group. The fighters have become infamous for organizing such battlefield ruses as posing as civilians and faking surrenders.\nAnother British officer, who requested anonymity, said Fedayeen fighters were breaking into homes to hide and to use them as cover.\nThe commander of Britain's forces in the gulf, Air Marshal Brian Burridge, said troops had taken their time before entering Basra in order to "shape the battle space" in the coalition's favor and ensure minimum civilian casualties.\nHe said it was necessary to attack "without risking inordinately the lives of the population -- knowing where the irregulars are, knowing where the militia are and being in a position to deal with them with as much precision as possible," he told British Broadcasting Corporation radio.\nCars filled with families left Basra all day. In some cases, huge trucks were seen leaving loaded with merchandise -- dozens of mattresses, boxes of generators, televisions, refrigerators.\nThe road running north into Basra runs through Safwan and Zubayr, smaller towns that appear abandoned. At Zubayr, hundreds of people had set up a temporary encampment along a small, muddy river, where they washed clothes and ate. Children roamed the area, begging for water.