One of the five American prisoners shown on Al-Jazeera

AS-SALIYAH, Qatar, March 23 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – U.S. commanders Sunday, March 23, confirmed that a number of their troops were killed and wounded in heavy fighting in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.

Lieutenant General John Abizaid, the deputy commander of the Central Command, told a briefing that other U.S. troops were wounded and 12 missing after a separate ambush near Nasiriyah, Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Brigadier General Vince Brooks told reporters at the Centcom forward command post here that the 12 were believed to be in Iraqi custody.

"It's a tough day of fighting for the coalition," Brooks said.

Abizaid said that U.S. forces seeking to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had run into resistance in several locations, notably a battle in Nasiriyah that was "the sharpest engagement of the war."

He said the fighting in Nasiriyah, a key Euphrates River crossing point, left "a number of killed and wounded" among the U.S. Marines, but did not give a figure.

The BBC quoted U.S. sources as reporting four American dead and 50 wounded in the battle it said pitted 5,000 Marines against some 500 Iraqi defenders for the main route through Nasiriyah.

The Arabic-language television network Al-Jazeera showed at least five charred and bloodied bodies of U.S. soldiers reportedly killed at Nasiriyah. Also shown were five prisoners, including two wounded.

The Iraqi military said in a statement that 25 U.S. and British troops had been killed around Nasiriyah, along with "a large number wounded and others taken prisoner." There was no independent confirmation.

Despite the heavy fighting at Nasiriyah and other spots in southern Iraq, Abizaid said U.S.-British forces were by and large meeting “little resistance” in their drive to topple Saddam Hussein.

"By far the majority of (Iraqi) units have just melted away," he said.

Stubborn Resistance

U.S. forces moved past stiff resistance Sunday in southern Iraq, reportedly suffering heavy losses in this Euphrates river town, to close in on Baghdad from two directions.

Field reports said U.S. Marines were racing towards the capital from the southeast, with U.S. Army infantry to the west surging past Najaf, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) outside Baghdad.

U.S. commanders expressed “satisfaction” with their forces' progress as they continued to bomb Baghdad and prepared to open a northern front.

But the going on the ground on the war's fourth day was tougher than expected.

U.S. troops skirted Nasiriyah, a key river crossing point, after using Cobra and other attack helicopters and artillery against stubborn Iraqi forces with tanks, an AFP photographer said.

Thick columns of black smoke rose from the city, the AFP photographer said, and half a dozen gutted Iraqi tanks were seen at the entrance.

Fighting continued outside the southern port of Basra as Britain's vaunted Desert Rats faced fierce opposition from Iraqi forces with rocket-propelled grenades, artillery, mortars and machine guns.

Correspondents traveling with the troops outside Basra said they found a massive, abandoned Iraqi arsenal of cruise missiles and warheads hidden inside fortified bunkers.

Umm Qasr Resists

Iraqi soldiers also fought on for a fourth day Sunday at the strategic southern outpost of Umm Qasr despite the firepower of U.S. and British marines supported by tanks and attack helicopters.

The unexpected opposition came from Iraqi army regulars who have no real loyalty to Saddam and were expected to be pushovers. But the U.S. forces still made good time in their march through the desert.

An AFP correspondent traveling with the army's Third Division said the lead elements had reached an area between Najaf and Karbala, both major Shiite centers.

The infantrymen were backed by air power, including A-10 Thunderbolt "tankbusters" that destroyed 27 vehicles in a burst of firepower on Sunday, according to army officers.

Colonel Will Grimsley, of the division's First Brigade, said 30-40 Iraqis were killed and 200 taken prisoner near Najaf.

The troops moving up from Kuwait, including the U.S. Marines First Expeditionary Force that kicked off a 72-hour dash north, were eager to avoid nasty house-to-house combat in the cities.

They edged Sunday around the key Euphrates river passageway of Nasiriyah where Iraqi forces had put up a fight that prompted U.S. commanders to call in artillery and Cobra attack helicopters.

Negotiating Basra

U.S.-British forces also tried to negotiate the surrender of the port of Basra, Iraq's second city which commanders have vowed not to enter.

"We won't be going into cities, the last thing we need now is a new Somalia," one Marine officer said, referring to the fierce urban warfare encountered by U.S. forces in Mogadishu nearly a decade ago.

Iraqi officials said cluster bombs dropped by U.S. and British war planes on Basra had left 77 civilians dead and 366 others wounded. There was no independent verification.

The coalition forces suffered a new setback in the air as a Royal Air Force plane was reported missing after it was hit by a U.S. Patriot missile.

British officials said the plane shot down was a Tornado, a fighter-bomber with a crew of two that was missing after the third air accident in three days. Nineteen servicemen were killed in helicopter crashes Friday and Saturday.

Buoyed by reports of resistance against U.S. and British troops advancing in the south, Iraqi officials warned allied forces Sunday that they would encounter even stiffer resistance in populated towns.

"We let them go for a walk in the desert, but all our towns will resist," Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told a news conference.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said Sunday that no Iraqi city had fallen to US-led forces and said that Israel was taking part in the four-day-old war on Iraq.   

"No city has fallen into their hands. Umm Qasr, which is a small, isolated community, is still resisting," Sabri, the first Iraqi official to travel abroad since the start of the war, told reporters at Cairo's airport.

Sabri, arriving in Egypt after a stop in Syria, also said that Israel was involved in the war.

Iraq is "sure that the Zionists are participating in the aggression, after having found an Israeli missile," he said, saying that Baghdad was fighting a tripartite American-Anglo-Zionist aggression.

The statement follows a report on official Iraqi television that an Israeli-made missile had been found in Baghdad.