SADDAM HUSSEIN last night faced a massive onslaught as British and US forces attacked Iraq by land, sea and air.

Royal Marine Commandos were reported to have begun an amphibious assault on southern Iraq, and US marines crossed into enemy territory from Kuwait.

There were reports that US and UK forces had taken the strategic Iraqi border town of Umm Qasr, just south of the key city of Basra. But Iraq's Al-Shabab TV denied that Umm Qasr had been captured.

Baghdad suffered a second night of attacks with reports that British submarines added to the wave of cruise missiles raining down on the Iraqi capital.

Missiles were reported to have slammed into the Republican Guard headquarters in Baghdad as a series of heavy explosions rocked the city.

The latest attacks were a major escalation of the coalition's military action following the assassination attempt on Saddam Hussein in the early hours of yesterday when missiles were fired at a "senior leadership compound" on the outskirts of Baghdad.

Last night, RAF Tornado GR4 and Harrier attack aircraft based at airfields in Kuwait were flying sorties in support of the ground attacks.

The aircraft had been mounting missions across the border into Iraq throughout the day and into the night.

The beginning of the first land engagement of the conflict was marked by a US artillery bombardment of Iraqi positions across the Kuwaiti border.

The US 3rd Infantry Division bombarded Iraqi positions with Paladin self-propelled howitzers and multiple launch rocket systems.

Explosions inside Iraq could clearly be heard as more than 100 artillery shells were launched. No fire was being returned. American infantrymen cheered as the 155 mm shells screamed overhead.

Meanwhile, F-14 and F-18 jets took off from the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the eastern Mediterranean, armed with missiles and bombs.

As the land invasion was unleashed there were reports of mass surrendering by Iraqi forces and claims from Pentagon sources that the Iraqi military was "breaking from within".

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last night that the Iraqis were still facing an onslaught of unprecedented proprtions.

Mr Rumsfeld said the coalition air strikes would continue directly to target the Iraqi leadership.

"The days of the Saddam Hussein regime are numbered," he said.

"What will follow will not be a repeat of any other conflict. It will be of a force and scope and scale that is beyond what has been seen before."

In the Commons, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon told MPs that the coalition's military plan had been deliberately "crafted" to achieve the overthrow of the Iraqi dictator.

Mr Hoon indicated British special forces had already been engaged in "certain military operations" behind Iraqi lines even before last night's cross-border incursions.

The Iraqis responded to the overnight attack by some 36 cruise missiles fired from US warships in the Gulf by launching at least four Scud missiles of their own into northern Kuwait where British and US forces were massing.

There were no reports that any managed to hit their targets but throughout the day US and British troops were repeatedly forced to scramble into their gas masks amid fears of a chemical weapons attack.

RAF Harriers were sent to hunt and destroy Scud-carrying lorries in southern Iraq although commanders reported no successes.

There were fears too that the Iraqis had started to set alight oilfields in a repeat of events from the 1991 Gulf War.

Reports said three or four oil wells were burning in the south of the country.

Mr Rumsfeld issued a direct warning to Iraqi commanders not to obey orders to launch chemical or biological weapons, wreck oilfields or flood villages by destroying dams.

He said such actions were crimes and would be punished once the war was over.

Coalition radio broadcasts would issue instructions explaining to Iraqi troops how they could demonstrate that they did not intend to fight.

"If you follow Saddam Hussein's orders you will share his fate," he warned them.

The Americans apparently chose to target the compound in Baghdad early yesterday after intelligence reports that a number of senior leadership figures were present.

They refused to say whether Saddam was among them, but the Baghdad regime quickly moved to scotch reports that he had been killed by screening television pictures of him.

Coalition experts were last night still studying the images of Saddam, looking old and tired and wearing glasses, to determine whether it was actually him and whether or not it had been pre-recorded.

In his first public appearance since the large-scale military action in Iraq began, President George Bush said US troops had "performed with great skill and great bravery".

"There's no question we've sent the finest of our citizens into harm's way," he said.

Meanwhile, Iraq claimed it had repulsed an "enemy" attack on an area bordering Jordan and further claimed it had shot down many of the cruise missiles launched at the country.

The armed forces command put the Iraqi forces' casualties at four dead and five wounded.

21/03/2003