The Quiet and Tense Times

As U.S. ground troops and warplanes pounded Republican Guard positions south of Baghdad, allied officers said Iraq was sending reinforcements from the north. British troops broke resistance in a Basra suburb, and U.S. Marines seized a huge cache of weapons southwest of Nasiriyah. Along the Euphrates River, nearly 50 Iraqis were killed in a fight for a key bridge. Near Najaf, U.S. troops, fearing another suicide bombing, killed seven women and children in a car when it failed to stop at a checkpoint. In Baghdad, bombs repeatedly struck the Republican Palace complex.