Fighting on the streets of Iraq's second city 'leaves 77 civilians dead'

British and American tanks were advancing on Basra last night amid reports of resistance in a city that was supposed to welcome the invading forces.

Explosions echoed over the city, and flashes lit up the sky into the night.

Unnamed coalition military officials said there were "isolated pockets of resistance" in the city. Fleeing residents spoke of fighting in the streets.

There are unconfirmed reports that as many as 77 civilians have died in the battle for Basra already – the highest figures anywhere in the country. Al-Jazeera television showed a harrowing image of a young boy with the back of his head blown off yesterday, apparently a civilian victim of American bombing, and showed bloodied people being treated on the floor of a hospital.

Residents fleeing Basra said the Iraqi military had taken the battle into the city.

"There is fighting in the centre, on the streets. It is terrible," said Hussein, a 24-year-old engineer who works for a state-run oil company.

Hussein said he escaped from the city on Saturday with his wife and young son. "We don't want Americans here. This is Iraq," he said.

More civilians streamed out of Basra yesterday, in lorries and battered cars crammed with household belongings. The sound of machine-gun and artillery fire echoed behind them.

The Iraqi Information Minister claimed three US soldiers were killed in the battle for Basra. There was no confirmation of that claim. Reporters on the scene said more than 60 Iraqi soldiers were killed and dozens more injured as the soldiers and tanks of the British 7th Armoured Brigade – the Desert Rats – rained down fire upon the key battleground of southern Iraq.

The battle for Basra began on Saturday evening when British troops rolled up to the city's outskirts and found themselves under immediate attack. Iraqi soldiers were dug in on both sides of a bridge from where they mounted a deafening defence using tanks, artillery and rocket-propelled grenades.

After an aerial assault from four American Cobra helicopters on Iraqi positions, the Desert Rats moved in under cover of darkness towards a massive military complex on the south side of the canal.

Machine-gun fire from two Iraqi positions streamed towards the British, who replied with cannon shells and heavy machine-gun volleys. Tracer rounds smashed into the Iraqi positions, carving red arcs of light through the darkness.

In the background huge fireballs could clearly be seen from seven oil processing facilities set alight by the retreating Iraqis. The thick black plumes of smoke that poured from the fires choked the sky and filled the air with acrid fumes.

British infantry were sent in to clear a barracks. Iraqi troops were firing from room to room. It was more than two hours before the complex was secured.

British troops took the key Shatt al-Basra bridge in heavy fighting. Three Iraqi T-55 tanks were destroyed and several heavy field guns blown to pieces in the exchanges of fire.

There were reports of four missiles being spotted at a school in Basra, where at least two mobile Scud launchers have also been spotted. The dangers facing British troops were confirmed when two Land Rovers were hit with rocket-propelled grenades, close to Al-Zubayr, a town a short distance west of Basra. One of the vehicles was destroyed, but the fate of the other Land Rover and the soldiers inside it was unclear last night.

The resistance failed to halt the British advance and by nightfall all four battle groups from the Deserts Rats were in place on the fringes of Basra.

US Marines, who were leading the assault on the city until yesterday, have now moved northwards towards central Iraq and Baghdad, leaving the seizure of Basra to be completed by the Desert Rats.

Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Blackman, commanding officer of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, now the most advanced of the Desert Rats' battle groups, said: "The Iraqi army clearly has a bit left in it, but we are trying to use minimum force into and over Basra. Our intention is to go into Basra as a humanitarian force."

Major Joe Carnegie, a spokesman for the British Army in Iraq, added: "We will not be entering Basra as a triumphalist army. We want to show people that we are coming as their friends." South of Basra, reporters witnessed a group of Iraqi youths smiling and waving as a convoy of British tanks and lorries passed. But once it had gone, leaving a trail of dust and grit in its wake, their smiles turned to scowls. "We don't want them here," tutted 17-year-old Fouad, looking angrily up at the plumes of grey smoke rising from the city.

He held up a picture of Saddam Hussein. "Saddam is our leader. Saddam is good," he said defiantly, looking again at his well-worn picture showing the Iraqi leader with a benign smile, sitting on a majestic throne.

British troops recovered dozens of rocket-propelled grenade launchers and rockets, and dozens of machine-guns and crates of ammunition.

They also discovered that retreating Iraqi soldiers had packed one-and-a-half tonnes of plastic explosive around the base of the main bridge over the Shaat al-Basra canal which leads into the port city. But the enemy's attempt to detonate the explosives as the British troops surged on to the bridge failed.

Prisoners have told British intelligence officers that they tried to surrender on Friday when they knew the Desert Rats were on their way. But they were rounded up by President Saddam's reviled Secret Security organisation and herded into a barracks outside the city, where they were forced at gunpoint to return to the front line.

This report was compiled from agency and pool reports from correspondents with the British forces near Basra.