US forces launched an assault on Baghdad airport after armoured units thrust almost unopposed within commuting distance to the Iraqi capital where they aim to destroy the rule of President Saddam Hussain. The Saddam International Airport came under US artillery fire last evening, leaving dozens killed and injured outside Baghdad.
As ground forces advanced, planes blasted targets in and around the city, where the power went off for the first time since the US -led war started two weeks ago. US officials said their forces had not targeted the electricity grid. “They’ve taken several outlying areas and are closer to the centre of the Iraqi capital than many American commuters are from their downtown offices,” US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. US officers said parts of four elite Iraqi Republican Guard divisions were moving south, setting up a potential showdown for the capital.
Other important events
1833 Attempt by revolutionaries to take over Frankfurt Diet in Germany is crushed.
1882 Jesse James, an American outlaw and folk hero, is killed by a member of his own gang.
1930 Ras Tafari becomes Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia (Ethiopia).
1941 British troops evacuate Libyan port of Benghazi during Second World War.
1946 Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma, the Japanese commander responsible for the Bataan Death March, is executed.
1968 American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his famous ‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop’ speech at a rally in Memphis.
1978 US President Jimmy Carter decides not to produce the neutron bomb.
1981 India and Pakistan play their first match at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.
1982 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher orders a naval task force to the Falkland Islands.
1984 Air force squadron leader Rakesh Sharma becomes India’s first man in space.
1991 One of the greatest modern writers Graham Greene dies at the age of 86.
1992 Communist Ramiz Alia resigns as president of Albania.
1995 At least 150 Hutus, mostly women and children, are massacred in a single village in northeastern Burundi.
1996 A US Air Force plane carrying US Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and several American business leaders crashes near the airport in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
1999 Nato missiles destroy police headquarters in the heart of Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
2006 UAE amends law for commercial agencies.
2007 Shaikh Hamad Bin Jasem Bin Jabr Al Thani is appointed as prime minister of Qatar.
2008 Greek and Turkish Cypriot authorities open a border crossing at Ledra Street.
2009 Najeeb Razzaq is sworn in as Malaysia’s prime minister.
2010 Gunmen wearing military uniforms storm a Sunni village near Baghdad and kill 25 people.
2012 Colombia’s largest rebel group, Farc, has freed some of the world’s longest-held hostages.
2013 Suicide bombers storm a courthouse in a failed bid to free Taliban prisoners in Farah province, Afghanistan. At least 21 civilians and nine attackers are killed.
2014 Kuwaiti Minister of Justice, Islamic Endowments and Islamic Affairs, Nayef Al Ajmi has resigned for his alleged involvement in funding terrorism.
2016 Two dead as Amtrak train derails after hitting backhoe near Philadelphia.
2017 An explosion tore through a metro train in St Petersburg, Russia, killing 10 people.
