Forces take airfields

But U.S. commanders refrained from an all-out bombardment on Baghdad as they tried to persuade their Iraqi counterparts to surrender.

The allies reported their first combat casualty, an officer from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force killed in southern Iraq.

Twelve more Marines -- eight British and four American -- died when their helicopter crashed and burned in Kuwait. Officials said the crash was not caused by hostile fire.

The airfields known as H-2 and H-3 in far western Iraq, near Jordan, were taken without much resistance, U.S. defense officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. But they called control of the installations "tentative".

Defense experts called the airfields strategically important in part because Saddam Hussein is believed to have Scud missiles there. One of them was used to launch Scud attacks on Israel in the first Gulf War.

American and British forces meanwhile pushed deeper into southern Iraq, some racing unimpeded across the desert, others meeting hostile fire.

A Pentagon official said they troops had "passed through" the Rumeila oil field but it may be too soon to say they have complete control of it, one senior Pentagon official said. Rumeila was the area where the Marine officer was killed.

Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers have surrendered, U.S. officials said.

CNN reported that coalition forces had seized the strategic port of Umm Qasr, at the head of the Gulf.

British Marines earlier secured other parts of the Faw peninsula, including oil installations. The port is south of the major Iraqi port city of Basra.

The Army's 3rd Infantry Division, meanwhile, had pushed about 90 miles into Iraq and was heading straight north toward Baghdad, CNN said.

Reports that U.S. special forces had seized oil fields near Kirkuk, in the north, Iraq's largest oil-producing areas could not be confirmed.

Hoping the Iraqi regime might capitulate, U.S. military commanders held negotiations behind closed doors with Iraqi commanders and refrained from all-out bombardment. Instead, U.S. missiles and bombs struck specific targets -- including the main presidential palace in Baghdad and strongholds of the elite Special Republican Guard.

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Sa'eed al-Sahhaf said one of Saddam Hussein's homes was hit in the bombing, though no one was hurt.

U.S. officials said they had no definitive word on whether the Iraqi leader was caught in the attack, but indicated that medical workers were summoned to a compound in Baghdad after it was hit. The officials said Iraqi forces subsequently seemed cut off from their leadership.

The official Iraqi News Agency said 37 people were injured in the latest strikes on Baghdad, and Iraqi military said four soldiers were killed.

There were no figures given on Iraqi losses in ground combat.

In the war zone, U.S. and British forces moved on a broad front, with infantry racing across the desert in thousands of tanks and trucks, plumes of dust in their wake, and Marines edging cautiously toward strategic oil towns and military outposts, calling in air support to take out snipers. In some cases, units were preceded by special forces teams.

The ground assault was launched four hours earlier than planned after Iraqis set fire to oil wellheads and pipelines, Marine officers said. Coalition forces raced through black smoke to secure oil facilities and prevent Iraq from pumping oil into the Persian Gulf in a repeat of the environmental disaster Saddam's forces carried out as they retreated from Kuwait in 1991.

Iraqi troops set fire to 30 of the hundreds of oil wells in the region, British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said. Iraq has 1,685 oil wells and exported 2 million barrels daily before the war.

Capt. Al Lockwood, spokesman for British forces, said the U.S.-led attack could reach Baghdad swiftly. "If I was a betting man, and I'm not, I would say hopefully within the next three or four days," he said.

In Britain, American B-52 bombers began taking off from their air base. Officials refused to disclose their mission; they would be capable of reaching Iraq in about six hours.

U.S. Marines seized a portion of the main road leading from Kuwait to the city of Basra, suppressing resistance from Iraqi mortars and arms. Officers said the seizure could help speed the takeover of Basra, southern Iraq's largest city.

Another Marine unit, the 7th Infantry's 3rd Battalion, had to delay its foray into Iraq after it was reported that numerous tanks were sighted unexpectedly on the Iraqi side of the border. The unit took small-arms and artillery fire Thursday night, and at one point a U.S. Cobra helicopter accidentally fired a missile at an American tank, injuring one soldier and forcing abandonment of the smoldering tank.

But overall, resistance to the allies was limited. Within a few hours of crossing into southern Iraq, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit encountered 200 or more Iraqi troops seeking to surrender.

One group of 40 Iraqis marched down a two-lane road toward the Americans and gave up. They were told to lie face down on the ground, then were searched by Marines.

Waving Iraqi civilians greeted members of the 1st Marine Division as they entered the town of Safwan. "We're very happy... Saddam Hussein is a butcher," said a man in the back of a pickup truck, identifying himself only as Abdullah. A woman fell at the feet of the Americans and embraced them, touching their knees.

Soldiers from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division also crossed into Iraq and encountered several Iraqi armored personnel carriers, destroying at least three, troops reported by radio. British troops moved on the strategic al-Faw peninsula -- Iraq's access point to the Persian Gulf and the site of major oil facilities.