The United States launched a ferocious, around-the-clock aerial assault on military targets in Baghdad and other cities Friday, and invading ground troops penetrated 100 miles into Iraq. The ancient capital's skyline exploded in balls of flame.
Coalition commanders accepted the surrender of the 8,000-member 51st Iraqi Infantry Division near the southern city of Basra, officials said, and U.S. and British troops encountered little resistance as they seized Iraq's only port city and moved to secure key oil fields.

Other units moved into western airfield complexes where Iraq was believed to have Scud missiles capable of reaching Israel, and possibly weapons of mass destruction as well.

Military commanders reported that two Marines were killed by enemy fire, the first coalition combat deaths in the 3-day old Operation Iraqi Freedom. One died trying to secure an oil pumping station; the other fell in the battle for Umm Qasr, the port city taken after a fight.

Iraqi troops surrendered in large numbers - some so eagerly that they turned themselves in to journalists accompanying American forces. But the regime gave no clear sign of quitting.

Asked whether Iraqis plan a counterattack, Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf said, "Our leadership and our armed forces will decide this, in what guarantees the defeat of those mercenaries, God willing."

The U.S. Central Command, which is running the war, said the targets included military command and control installations and buildings in and around Baghdad, as well as targets in the northern cities of Mosul, Kirkuk and Tikrit, Saddam's hometown.

Fires raged inside Saddam Hussein's Old Palace compound and thick smoke from blossoming mushroom clouds enveloped the Iraqi capital.

In Iraq, the government-run news agency said Saddam had decreed that any Iraqi who kills an enemy soldier would get a reward equivalent to dlrs 14,000. The reward for capturing an enemy solider was put at dlrs 28,000.

American units advancing west of the southern city of Basra secured the Rumeila field, whose daily output of 1.3 million barrels makes it Iraq's most productive.

Even with the war continuing, diplomatic jockeying broke out over its aftermath.

French President Jacques Chirac, a vocal opponent of the war, said he would veto any United Nations Security Council resolution that would allow the United States and Britain to administer a postwar Iraq.

"That would justify the war after the event," Chirac told reporters

Other Key Developments Concerning Iraq

* _US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saddam Hussein and his lieutenants are "starting to lose control of their country."

* _ Saddam and his leaders presented a united front in the face of Rumsfeld's claims, insisting the surrendering troops were not Iraqi soldiers. Hussein reportedly met with military leaders, while Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf denounced Rumsfeld as "This criminal dog."

* _ Two U.S. Marines died in combat in southern Iraq. One was battling Iraqi infantry to secure an oil pumping station. The second was fighting near the strategic port of Umm Qasr, which the Marines eventually controlled.

* _ U.S. and British troops captured many key facilities in Iraq's southern oil fields, saving them from possible sabotage and ensuring their use for the country's postwar reconstruction.

* _ Iraq fired its sixth missile into Kuwait, but it was shot down by Patriot missiles. The Kuwaiti military identified the latest as an al-Fatah missile, among the banned weaponry U.N. inspectors were hunting for.

PHOTO CAPTION

In this image taken from video, an explosion is seen in Baghdad, Iraq during the US-led air campaign against the Iraqi capital Friday evening, March 21, 2003. (AP Photo/Abu-Dhabi TV, VIA APTN)