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A column of about 70 to 120 Iraqi tanks and armoured personnel carriers streamed south out of the southern Iraqi city of Basra Wednesday and came under attack from the US-British coalition forces.
The Cable News Network (CNN) reported that the coalition warplanes were attacking the column and artillery is also being fired.
A spokesman at the US Central Command in Doha confirmed the report, saying that the armoured column that came out of the south-east of Basra down the Al Faw Peninsula and it has been engaged.
Basra is Iraq's most important port on the coast of the Arab Sea, and lies around 100 kilometers from the Gulf.
Military analysts say that if the coalition troops want to take control of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad from the south, they must take over Basra first.
(Xinhua News Agency March 27, 2003)
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