Key developments in the war against Iraq

U.S. troops are ready to launch a major assault against Iraqi Republican Guard forces protecting Baghdad, but the commanding general may wait for pressure to build on Saddam Hussein before striking, U.S. war planners said Sunday.

A Marine UH-1 Huey helicopter crashed at a forward supply and refueling point in southern Iraq on Sunday, killing three U.S. servicemen and wounding one, the U.S. military said. Enemy fire wasn't involved, U.S. authorities said.

An explosion sparked a fire at the Information Ministry building in Baghdad. Other airstrikes hit military facilities at the Abu Gharayb presidential palace, several telephone exchanges, the Karada military intelligence complex and the barracks of a paramilitary training center, the U.S. Central Command said.

The 101st Airborne Division encircles the holy city of Najaf, prepared to go door to door to root out Iraqi fighters in a battle that risks damage to Shiite shrines. Farther north, Army troops crept 10 miles closer to Baghdad, meeting little resistance.

Syria's foreign minister Farouk al-Sharaa told parliament that the United States was leading the American people to "catastrophe" by putting them in direct confrontation with the international community.

American peace activists confirmed a report last week that a hospital in Rutbah in Iraq's western desert was bombed. They said no Iraqi military presence was evident. U.S. Central Command denied knowledge of the bombing.

Kurdish fighters took control of more territory left by Iraqi forces withdrawing toward the major oil center of Kirkuk.

American forces are searching a terrorist compound in northeastern Iraq that was probably the site where militants made ricin, a biological toxin, the Pentagon's top general said Sunday.

U.S. Marines discovered chemical suits, masks and nerve gas antidote during a raid on buildings used by Iraq's 11th Infantry Division in the southern city of Nasiriyah, U.S. Central Command said.

Hundreds of grim-faced Iraqis lined up outside a United Nations office in Damascus seeking refuge or any aid they could get.

A pickup truck driven by an Egyptian man in civilian clothes plowed into a group of U.S. soldiers outside a store at a Kuwaiti base Sunday, injuring 15 of them, officials said. One soldier was hospitalized.

Indonesians held their biggest demonstration against the Iraq war to date and students in China staged a rare state-sanctioned protest as hundreds of thousands around the world staged another day of rallies denouncing the conflict.