British troops have launched a second wave of attacks on Basra, Iraq's strategic second city. Hours earlier soldiers from the 7th Armoured Brigade made a breakthrough following more than two weeks of battling on the city's outskirts.
They had pushed their way through an industrial area in the outskirts from thesouth west, and encountered "isolated pockets" of resistance.
The campaign comes a week after the Marines' biggest attack of the war - codenamed Operation James - when they seized large parts of the city suburbs.
Artillery support, which can be heard across the suburbs, was being provided while tanks were also being used.
Speaking after the first wave of attacks, UK military spokesman Group CaptainAl Lockwood, in Qatar, said it appeared Basra's Baath Party leadership hadeither been eliminated or fled.
He said the city's civilians appeared to have welcomed the troops.Military commanders decided to push into the city centre - beyond theiroriginal intention to establish checkpoints on its suburbs - after encounteringminimal resistance by Iraqi forces.
Capt Lockwood said: "At the start of the operation today, 7th ArmouredBrigade on three different axes moved in towards the centre.
"Our initial objective was to control the outskirts of Basra, set up vehicleand civilian checkpoints and stabilise that area.
"We met some light resistance and I understand now we are continuing theapproach in towards the centre of Basra."We had resistance initially on the way in, but that appears to havedisappeared."
Explaining the decision to move in, Capt Lockwood said reports that theremaining leadership in Basra was keen to surrender, and that the city'scitizens were looting the shops suggesting a loss of control by Iraqi forces,had been influential factors.
"Therefore the indicators were there that probably the time was right to moveinto Basra and we have done," Capt Lockwood told Sky News.
Allied forces encountered isolated pockets of militia, light fire, androcket-propelled grenades.
But opposition was "generally disorganised, with no real command andcontrol", Capt Lockwood said.
ITV News reporter Juliet Bremner, who was with the first rolling convoyheading into Basra, said Iraqi forces had been taken by "surprise".She said hundreds of tanks were travelling down one of the main highwaysleading directly into the north of the city.
"There seems to be nothing to stop them. No rocket-propelled grenades havebeen fired at the convoy so it should be a pretty straight-forward route intothe city. There are no signs of firing or any signs of resistance," she said.
Troops encircling the city pushed forward between two and three miles fromjust north of a bridge marking the southern boundary.
Earlier, British tanks and American Cobra helicopter gunships repeatedlypounded a factory complex as Iraqi militiamen responded with machine-gun andsniper fire.
PA