BAGHDAD, 7 April 2003 — Iraq banned civilians from leaving Baghdad at night from yesterday as US-led forces closed in on the capital after 18 days of war.
“It has been decided that there will be a ban on the movement of vehicles and people from and into the capital Baghdad between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. until further notice,” an announcer said on state television.
No reason was given for the restriction. Until now, some civilians had been driving out of Baghdad even at night, when US missile and bombing raids have often been most intense.
Worn out by the war, thousands of Iraqis have fled the sprawling city of five million people, trudging to relative safety behind US military lines or else heading north, away from the American advance from the south.
On Saturday, men, women and children walked for hours through the fierce heat of an early summer’s day, carrying at most the odd plastic bag, blankets or tin kettle between them, a witness southeast of Baghdad said.
Just before the announcement of the travel ban, Reuters correspondents in the center of Baghdad heard heavy artillery echoing from the western outskirts of the city.
In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said the travel ban would have no impact on the US-led invasion. “We will go wherever and whenever we want,” the spokesman told Reuters. “It will have no impact on coalition military operations.”
US-led forces dropped 200,000 leaflets over Baghdad on Saturday, urging civilians to stay inside and saying that Washington and London do not want to harm civilians in the drive to oust Saddam.
The commander of the US air war against Iraq said attack jets, air controllers and unmanned spy planes were on 24-hour alert over Baghdad ahead of a ground war in the city.
At a transit camp in the desert of neighboring Jordan, travelers who left Baghdad on Friday said Iraq had already restricted travel. Two families, in which the husbands were Egyptian and the wives Iraqi, said that they were allowed to leave only because the men were foreigners. They said that other Iraqi relatives were being told to stay.
