By Paul A. Anthony, Editor in Chief

The war in Iraq intensified throughout the day Thursday, as U.S. Marines and British troops entered southern Iraq and bombs and missiles continued to rain on Baghdad.

Further information also was released involving the start of the war, which was moved up after CIA director George Tenet told Pentagon officials that Saddam Hussein had been located.

As night fell over Baghdad, a second round of air strikes seemed to hit parts of Hussein’s presidential compound; TV cameras picked up flashes of light, explosions and smoke over the city.

Later Thursday, CNN reported that British troops were in southern Iraq’s oil-rich Al Faw Peninsula. A New York Times reporter traveling with the1st Marine Expeditionary Force said the force had engaged Iraq troops on the Kuwaiti side of the border before advancing northward.

Iraq, meanwhile, began retaliating by firing missiles at Kuwait, although no casualties had been reported at press time.

Although coalition attacks came with greater intensity Thursday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the full assault would be unprecedented.

“What will follow will not be a repeat of any other conflict,” Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon press conference. “It will be of a force and scope and scale that has been beyond what has been seen before.”

International reaction to the attacks has been fierce.

In Cairo, students of the city’s American University rioted outside the U.S. embassy as part of a wider string of anti-war protests at embassies throughout the Middle East and around the world. Strikes and protests marked the day throughout Europe, while violence also broke out in the Philippines.