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The following are the latest developments on the battlefield in Iraq:
NORTHERN IRAQ
The United States and Kurdish forces closed in on Iraq's third largest city, Mosul, after seizing control of the Maqlub mountains overlooking the city overnight Wednesday, according to reports.
The Maqlub mountains, some 15 km to 18 km north of Mosul, are the most strategic mountains on the road to the major northern city. They were seen as the last of the city's defenses. No casualties were reported on the US-Kurdish side.
IN AND AROUND BAGHDAD
The role of the US-led coalition forces in Iraq is switching from combat action to maintaining security and providing humanitarian aid to Iraqis, but they still have combat work to do, a spokesman of the US Central Command in Qatar said on Wednesday.
The US troops in Baghdad will double in the next 48 hours, the US military said on Wednesday.
The US forces battling in Baghdad have switched targets from attacks on Iraqi military and government targets to close fighting with local resistance, a source close to the coalition forces said Wednesday.
The coalition forces said that they have controlled most of the important Iraqi government and military targets in Baghdad, so the battle in the city has now changed to close engagement with the local resistance, the source said.
US troops entered districts of northwest Baghdad on Wednesday, reports said.
Blasts and artillery fire were heard in that direction, the reports added.
Witnesses said US troops, backed by military vehicles, overnight also entered Saddam City, Baghdad's teeming Shiite suburb, without facing resistance.
The British government said Wednesday that command and control in Baghdad seems to have disintegrated.
"The command and control in Baghdad appears to have disintegrated," Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman told reporters.
SOUTHERN IRAQ
British soldiers are taking the first steps to restore order to the southern Iraqi city of Basra as looting begins to subside, according to official sources Wednesday.
British forces in southern Iraq were quoted by BBC as saying that they have asked a tribal leader to take over as the "mayor" of Basra.
The unnamed cleric will head a committee of local people to run Iraq's second largest city, where British troops have overcome most Iraqi resistance.
In Basra, a British military spokesman Colonel Chris Vernon was quoted as saying that the British military hoped to move from a combat role to "post-conflict nation building" operations within a day or so.
(Xinhua News Agency April 9, 2003)
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