9:00 CST Press reports from CENTCOM headquarters in Qatar indicate that coalition forces have surrounded Basra and were "poised to take the city."

8:57 CST Defense and intelligence agencies have formed a special unit that will go into Iraq to search for Capt. Michael Scott Speicher, a missing U.S. Navy pilot believed to have been held captive in Iraq since 1991, according to the Washington Times. A classified intelligence report distributed to U.S. officials March 14 said that Speicher was seen as he was being moved in Baghdad, although officials said the sighting could not be confirmed.

The Washington Times has more.

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said Al Sahhaf said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has given orders for British and U.S. prisoners of war to be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention. The orders, which the minister said had been issued March 21, were a sharp change in Baghad's position. Earlier, Sahhaf had said that coalition forces were "not soldiers, they are mercenaries to which international law does not apply."

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said in Moscow that Russia would block any future moves by the United States and its allies to secure U.N. Security Council approval for the military action in Iraq and the postwar power structures they might establish there, Reuters reported. Russia, which has big economic and oil interests in Iraq, aligned itself with France and China in opposing U.S.-led military action to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and disarm Iraq of banned weapons of mass destruction that Washington says Hussein possesses.

A powerful explosion has occurred in territory belonging to the U.S. Embassy to Bahrain, in its capital Manama, Al Jazeera TV channel reports.

via Stratfor

8:54 CST Plumes of thick black smoke are rising over Baghdad from petroleum fires, most likely in the trenches Iraqi forces dug to dissuade U.S. ground attacks on the city. It is unclear if the Iraqis set the fires intentionally or if it is an unintended side effect of the coalition bombing campaign.

The Bush administration supports a humanitarian role in Iraq for the U.N. Security Council, but is resisting suggestions the Council should play a political role when the fighting ends, according to the Washington Times. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said March 21 the United States was ready to give U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan authority to run the program throughout Iraq on an interim basis and to use funds in the U.N. oil-for-food escrow account to pay for food, medicine and other costs. But Boucher said there was no need for a U.N. mandate authorizing the United States and Britain to temporarily govern Iraq after the end of the hostilities. "We have not proposed, nor have we discussed, any resolution that would be described as giving the United States authority to run Iraq," he said.

Several hundred journalists are cooling their heels in Ruweished, 45 miles east of the Iraqi-Jordanian border. Jordanian border police are blocking crossings into Iraq.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Defense Minister Peter Struck
jointly warned March 22 that Germany would pull its crew members out of NATO surveillance planes patrolling the Turkish airspace if Turkish troops enter northern Iraq.

Tens of thousands of mostly youths protested the U.S.-led war against Iraq in Egypt and the Gaza Strip on March 22. More than 20,000 protesters gathered at Cairo's prestigious al Ahzar University, calling on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to provide military assistance to Iraq -- or else step down. Anti-riot police were deployed to contain the protesters, but there been no reports of clashes so far. In addition, about a thousand lawyers held a sit-in protest at their association headquarters in Cairo to protest the government's position on the war. Lawyers associations in Egypt are often connected with the banned Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood which counts thousands of professional Egyptians among its ranks. In Gaza, a reported 10,000 people -- mostly students from Gaza's Islamic University -- filled the streets, chanting "No blood for oil," "Death to America and Great Britain," and "Where are the Arab countries' armies and leaders?" Agence France-Presse reported.

via Stratfor