Defenders prepare for capital battle

? The Iraqi capital’s defenders prepared Friday to make their last stand — digging ditches and stocking up on ammunition, even as thousands of frightened residents fled in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

The military’s preparations could be seen on the last three miles of the road heading south of Baghdad, where thousands of army troops and militiamen dug more trenches and foxholes.

Determined but not frantic, dozens relaxed in the shade against a wall or under a tree next to their weapons, taking shelter from an exceptionally hot April day.

But by nightfall, Baghdad had the appearance of a city under siege — empty streets, darkness from a power outage that began Thursday evening, and isolation from the outside world after allied bombings destroyed the city’s telephone exchanges.

The gloom reverberated with explosions — a nightly occurrence since the March 20 start of the allied bombing. The only sound between the booms was the hum of generators.

Before dawn today, huge flashes illuminated the night sky toward the southeast, where Iraqi defenders faced U.S. Marines.

The day before, thousands of residents fled the city, streaming toward the north and to the province of Diala to the northeast, in six-mile-long lines of traffic.

They packed buses, trucks, pickup cars, taxis, private cars — even horse-drawn carts — with blankets, foodstuffs, furniture, heaters, television sets, pillows, stoves, cooking pots, mattresses and pillows. And they waited in long lines at gasoline stations.

The U.S.-led forces amassing at the city’s outskirts, having taken control of the international airport, searched tunnels under it. Marines fought Fedayeen paramilitaries to the south, while some Army forces advanced with little strong opposition.

It was not clear whether they would try to attack Baghdad or whether they might apply a loose siege to the city, as they did in Basra in the south.

“There are several options to get to where we are going,” said U.S. Central Command spokesman Capt. Frank Thorp in Qatar. “Going into Baghdad is one option. But there are many other options.”

They are faced, though, with a budding humanitarian crisis. Allied officials insisted that they did not target the power grid because they knew that a loss of electricity would also cut water supplies.

But that has happened. And the result could be human suffering that could force the allies to move into Baghdad sooner than they would otherwise — risking the kind of bloody urban warfare they hoped to avoid.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in an address read on his behalf Friday by Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, seemed to relish a cataclysmic battle for Baghdad.

“Throughout history, evil invaders have targeted capitals and believed battle would be in the capital. But when the capital is steadfast and the invaders are defeated and repelled, they retreat in defeat,” he said.

Saddam would like to be remembered as an underdog that had the courage to fight a seemingly invincible enemy. He repeatedly has shown a tendency to see history as largely being made on the battlefield.

And so the forces approaching Baghdad may face a tough battle from thousands of well-concealed troops and militiamen armed with anything from Kalashnikovs and artillery to multiple rocket launchers and mortars.