THE first shots of the war
have been fired, killing at least one Iraqi during a suspected operation
to mine the waters off Kuwait. But that opening skirmish is about to be dwarfed
by the most formidable military assault in modern warfare: 250,000 British
and American troops — backed by more than 1,000 aircraft, 400 tanks and a
110-strong armada — are poised to unleash their awesome power on Saddam Hussein’s
Iraq the moment the order is given.
The first clash occurred in the mouth of the Khawr al-Zubayr
river, a few miles south of the port of Umm Qasr, when a Kuwaiti gunboat
challenged a flotilla of about 25 Iraqi dhows. The boats failed to respond
and the Kuwaitis opened fire. It was unclear whether the dhows had laid any
mines.
The Royal Navy has four mine counter-measure vessels in the
Gulf which were searching the waterway last night.
Tensions in the waters off Iraq are running high and coalition
ships are alert to the threat of mines and terrorist strikes. A British ship
escorting Royal Navy and US minesweepers was threatened yesterday while at
anchor in the northern Gulf. A cargo vessel, feared to be on an al-Qaeda
suicide mission, came within 800 yards of RFA Sir Bedivere during
a tense hour-long stand-off. Crew members trained two machineguns on the
500-tonne ship, The stand-off ended only when it was driven away by the heavily
armed USS Ardent.
