Coalition forces have entered the key southern Iraqi port of Umm Qasr.

Troops in northern Kuwait carried out a heavy bombardment of the area around the port before today's breakthrough, which should set the stage for the capture of Basra, around 20 miles from the Kuwait border.

Soldiers from the 15th US Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is working with 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines, entered Umm Qasr around midday today, military sources said.

They had come under fire along the way and destroyed a company-size Iraqi force (around 120 men), although it is not known how many of the enemy had been killed.

Giving an update on the conflict, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon told MPs that Umm Qasr should be under coalition control shortly.

Mr Hoon said that at 4.30 this morning coalition ground forces had begun an operation to seize the port and a nearby naval base.

Royal Navy ships including HMS Chatham and HMS Marlborough provided gunfire support to 3 Commando Brigade.

Umm Qasr would be vital to the economic future of southern Iraq and Royal Navy mine clearers were on stand-by to secure a shipping route for humanitarian supplies.

''Although action is continuing, we expect Umm Qasr to be fully under coalition control shortly,'' he said.

Reports from the Gulf said 250 Iraqi soldiers had surrendered and that US forces briefly raised the US flag.

Mr Hoon said the coalition land operations across the Kuwait-Iraq border were ''well under way'' today.

At 3am today the main land offensive began with forces advancing across the border.

''The two battle-groups of 7th Armoured Brigade are providing flank protection for this assault.

''We understand that stiff resistance has been encountered and that 7th Armoured Brigade has engaged in contact with Iraqi forces.''

Mr Hoon said the Iraqis had set light to around 30 oil wells among hundreds in southern Iraq.

Umm Qasr is the site of Iraq's second naval base and one of the country's main commercial seaports.

It lies near the Shatt al Arab waterway that leads to the city of Basra.

Earlier this month the United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Observer Mission, UNIKOM, said thousands of Iraqi troops had moved closer to the border with northern Kuwait.

The observers said that an army division based in Basra had established a new combat command post near Umm Qasr.

Officers from UNIKOM said a few thousand Iraqi troops had moved closer to the border and started digging trenches.

Iraq also deployed around half a dozen 105mm artillery guns and several anti-aircraft machine guns, surrounded by 15ft-high sand berms, on the north eastern end of the border, near Umm Qasr, said UNIKOM officers.

But the Iraqi troops were not looking forward to a fight, they said.

''They are terrified,'' one observer is reported to have said of the defenders. ''They won't surrender at the first shot. They will surrender when they hear the first American tank turn on its engine.''

Some of the Iraqi soldiers were reported to have been armed with Second World War machine guns, prompting speculation that they may have been part of conscript militias deployed to the southern front to bear the first impact of any allied attack.

The UNIKOM officers said Iraqi troops seemed mostly demoralised, wearing tattered uniforms, sometimes with sandals instead of boots.

Some complained they were paid only half a month's salary in the past three months, officers said.

21/03/2003