US Marines have made a dawn raid on a town to try and kill senior Iraqi officials they believe are directing guerrilla attacks.
Among those targeted in the raid on town of Shatra, about 20 miles north of Nassiriya, was Ali Hassan al-Majeed, or "Chemical Ali", the cousin that President Saddam Hussein has put in charge of the southern front.
Majeed earned his nickname for overseeing the use of poison gas against Kurdish villagers in 1988.
Marine officers said they had intelligence from anti-Saddam Iraqis that Majeed was in Shatra with other senior officials in Saddam's Baath party who were coordinating paramilitary forces that have ambushed US supply convoys and slowed the advance on Baghdad.
"We believe there are about 200 to 300 Baath party loyalists and Saddam Fedayeen irregulars in the town," said a Marine company commander.
A Reuters correspondent said the Marine unit he was with had retraced its steps back south down Highway 7 to Shatra, to deal with hostile forces that had been bypassed on their rapid advance.
"US planes dropped precision-guided bombs on four targets in Shatra," he said. "Tanks and armoured personnel carriers then moved in force to the edge of the town while Huey helicopter gunships raked the . . . target sites".