A week into the war, the United States military on Thursday opened a second front by airlifting troops and equipment into northern Iraq.

This was after nearly 1,000 paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade parachuted into Kurdish-controlled territory.

The forces will be used to protect Kurdish-controlled areas and also take offensive action against Iraqi troops, CNN quoted Brigadier General Vincent Brooks as saying at the US Central Command headquarters in Qatar.

US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair met on Thursday at Camp David, Maryland, for the first time since the start of the war and discussed the military effort and plans for the post-war reconstruction of Iraq.

They also called on the United Nations to resume the oil-for-food programme in Iraq.

As the blinding sandstorms that had slowed the US troops movement cleared up, the American used heavy guns and tank shells, including Apache helicopters, to try and dislodge nearly 1,500 Iraqi fidayeen fighters, who were guarding a bridge across the Euphrates river, to make their way towards Baghdad.

Early Friday morning, Baghdad came under fresh attack. BBC reported that blasts were heard from both the centre and outskirts of the city.

In the south of the country, coalition aircraft pounded a column of Iraqi tanks and armoured vehicles that was heading south out of Basra.

A UK defence official in the region was quoted as saying that much of the column had been "repelled and destroyed".

It was not clear if the column was retreating from Iraq's second city after reports of an uprising there or if it was launching an offensive against allied troops.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Health Minister Umid Midhat Mubarak said the US-led aggression had claimed the lives of 350 civilians. More than 4,000 had been injured, he added.

The minister, at a press conference in the Iraqi capital, said the toll was "approximate" and included mostly children, women and the elderly.

The coalition was using "cluster bombs" against civilians in Basra and Baghdad, Mubarak said.

In other developments

• At a Security Council debate on Thursday, the Iraqi Ambassador to the UN, Mohammed Al-Douri, accused the US and Britain of trying to wipe out the Iraqi race. He said the US had awarded contracts for rebuilding of Iraq in 1997 itself.
• Reporters covering the Iraq war for Arabic and Middle East media from the Coalition Media Centre at As Sayliyah base in Doha, Qatar, complained of lack of accurate information and alleged that there was a bias in favour of Western media.
• US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected the idea of a ceasefire.  Replying to questions at the Senate Appropriations Committee, he said, "At some point the war will end. And it will end at that point where that regime does not exist. At that point there will be something of a ceasefire."
• Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Richard Myers, who was testifying with Rumsfeld, said US Apache helicopters and jets were striking at the Republican Guards. "At some point, at a time of our choosing, we will engage them," he said, adding, "we'll see what kind of fight they have."
• Al-Jazeera showed video of what it said was an Apache helicopter shot down Thursday.
• The World Health Organisation distributed medicines in northern Iraq and sought permits to travel from Baghdad to Basra.
• A Patriot anti-missile battery destroyed a missile fired at Kuwait from Iraq, according to reports.

With inputs from the Press Trust of India