Civilians Helping Allies In Basra?

The British may be getting some help from within Basra, Iraq's second-largest city.

"I do understand that the sheer population there attempted to attack the ruling party," said Group Capt. Al Lockwood, spokesman for British forces in the Persian Gulf. "The ruling party responded by firing mortars at the crowd."

"There is word of a popular uprising among the local population, a popular uprising against Saddam Hussein's army," said Sky TV reporter Jeremy Thompson, west of the city.

British forces killed about 20 Iraqi fighters and seized a senior Baath Party politician near Iraq's second-largest city Tuesday, and repelled an Iraqi counterattack in Basra, a British military officer said.

Col. Chris Vernon, speaking in Kuwait, said British forces raided the local headquarters of Saddam Hussein's Baath party in Az Zubayr, about 10 miles southwest of Basra.

Richard Gaisford, another British reporter embedded with British troops, said there were two large explosions that totally destroyed Baath party headquarters.

Officials at the Coalition Press Information Center in Kuwait could not confirm the reports

If true, that would be good news to Vernon, who briefed reporters in Kuwait City when he returned from Basra, reports CBS News Correspondent Steve Knight. But Vernon couldn't confirm the report.

"We've had reports we can't substantiate as of yet of an uprising in Basra. We are closely monitoring the situation," U.S. Marine Maj. David C. Andersen said.

The London Times says Basra - populated mainly by Shia Muslims - has been continually bombarded with leaflets urging locals to rebel against the Sunni Muslim-dominated government of Saddam Hussein.

However the Times also reports that U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld is cautious in his reaction on possible rebellions in Basra, and appears wary of encouraging a popular revolt.

"We know there are people ready to shoot them if they try to rise up, we know there are people who will kill them if they try to leave," said Rumsfeld, reports the Times. "I hope and pray they'll do it at a time when there are sufficient forces nearby to be helpful to them."

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed al-Sahhaf denied any uprising in Basra.

"The situation is stable. Resistance is continuing and we are teaching them more lessons. This announcement (of an uprising)...stems from a feeling of frustration" on part of the British, al-Sahhaf told Qatar-based satellite station Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, two British soldiers were killed by friendly fire near Basra in southern Iraq, a British military commander said Tuesday.

In a statement issued through the Ministry of Defense in London, Vernon said the two men died when their Challenger II tank was mistakenly targeted by another Challenger crew on Monday evening.

Troops with the British 7th Armored and 3rd Commando brigades have been battling at least 1,000 irregular Iraqi units outside of Basra for two days. The units inside Basra are believed to including members of Saddam's Fedayeen, the Baath party paramilitary organization, as well as elite Republican Guard units.

The decision to declare parts of Basra "military targets" came after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said "urgent measures" had to be taken to restore electricity and water to the city's residents.

Humanitarian organizations warned of disaster if water and electricity aren't restored quickly.

As CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan reports, medicine to treat the growing number of wounded is dwindling and if the U.N.'s estimate is right, there's only enough food to last another 5 weeks.

"A city that size cannot afford to go without electricity and water for that long," says Annan.

"In a few weeks, when the population has exhausted its supplies, we will need to intervene," said Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Program, which distributed food under the U.N. oil-for-food program.

Government warehouses are "practically empty," she said.

Ian Simpson of the World Health Organization said his agency was concerned that poor-quality water could cause a major outbreak of diarrhea — which already is responsible for 75 percent of deaths of children under 5 in Iraq. Cholera is another worry.

With 1.3 million people in Basra, "we need to secure the city for the inhabitants and to ensure that their basic necessities in life are taken care of, and obviously that the necessary humanitarian aid, (and) medical facilities are restored as quickly as possible," Lockwood said.

Power was cut Friday as coalition forces tried to secure Basra. Other disabled pumping stations were operating again by Monday, restoring the water supply to 40 percent of the city, the Red Cross said.

British military officials said several days ago that they would prefer to negotiate surrenders with Iraqi troops rather than move into Basra itself to secure it. But with resistance persisting, they apparently concluded that something more decisive was necessary.

Basra is Iraq's main seaport and lies in southern Iraq's oil-producing region. It is a mostly Shiite Muslim city; a 1991 uprising by Shiites in Basra was crushed by the Iraqi military during that Gulf war.

Its cooking stoves, kerosene heaters, tarps for shelter and warehouses all around Kuwait are bursting at the seams. Nothing can get to the people who need it until coalition troops have Basra under control, and that's an increasingly complicated equation, reports Cowan.

In fact, aid agencies are being told not to even bother trying to bring relief supplies to the border because the only thing that's going to be getting through here are military convoys -- and that's it. And that will be the case, the Pentagon says, not for days, but for weeks.

"All these things are really just the beginning indicators of what could be a massive humanitarian crisis," says Cassandra Nelson of Mercy Corps.

So massive that the U.N. announced tonight it will ask for the largest single request for cash in its history, some $1 billion dollars, and that, is says, may only be enough to feed Iraq's people for another 6 months.