|
Battle for Baghdad nears crucial phase
25/03/2003 23:22 - (SA)
Near Najaf, Iraq - US-led forces near Baghdad geared for a decisive push on the capital after making key gains on Tuesday in two heavily contested southern cities in their bid to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Thousands of US marines braved withering Iraqi fire and punched through the Euphrates River crossing of Nasiriyah, while British forces declared the port of Umm Qasr under control.
But coalition troops had to step up their attack on the southern port of Basra, dropping bombs on the city centre, according to officers, and keeping up a tank duel with Iraqis on the outskirts.
Britain's Sky News TV channel reported that civilians in Basra had risen up against Iraqi forces, who fired mortars on them. It said British troops backed the civilians by shelling the Iraqi mortar positions.
However, a British military spokesperson at allied field command headquarters in Qatar said he could not confirm reports of the uprising. The battle for Baghdad was also nearing a critical phase, with US troops backed by Apache helicopter gun ships primed for an all-out assault on Iraq's elite Republican Guard defending the capital.
US officers said about 30 to 40 Apaches, the US military's most fearsome attack helicopter, had already made initial runs against the Republican Guard as the prelude to what could be an epic tank battle.
The US Army's Third Infantry Division was fewer than 100km
south of Baghdad, field reports said, with the 101st Airborne Division crawling up from the south west and the Marines to the east.
Officials said they would soon move against the Medina division of the Republican Guard, one of Iraq's main armoured units, near the Shi'ite Muslim centre of Karbala.
After encountering surprising resistance from Iraqi forces in the south, US commanders predicted the rest of the road to Baghdad would be rough and bloody. "The toughest fight is ahead of us," General Richard Myers, chairperson of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff told US television. "We know it will be a very tough battle." Operation Iraqi Freedom
'going to plan'
US President George W Bush insisted, however, that Operation Iraqi Freedom was going to plan. "Our coalition is on a steady advance," he said at the Pentagon. "We're making good progress."
Thunderstorms and dust storms that cut visibility to as little as 25m halted the US advance on Tuesday and left a US Apache and a Black Hawk helicopter missing. Conditions were forecast to clear on Wednesday.
Earlier, a column of about 4 000 US marines ran a gauntlet of heavy Iraqi fire to cross the Euphrates in Nasiriyah, about a third of the way up from Kuwait to Baghdad.
US forces used two bridges to get over the Euphrates, with about 500 Marines and some 50 tanks and armoured personnel carriers securing the area in between. Bodies litter the road More than 100 Iraqi bodies littered the road north from Nasiriyah as marines headed toward Baghdad after a
deadliest - clashes in the six-day-old war.
The odour of burnt flesh filled the air and the road was strewn with bombed-out vehicles. About 15km north of the city, a group of 40 Iraqi prisoners was seen in the custody of US troops.
Allied forces also said they had managed on Tuesday to quell spirited Iraqi resistance in the south eastern port of Umm Qasr.
"Umm Qasr is under total control. The clean-up operation is over," a British officer said.
Pockets of Iraqi resistance had held out in the town on the border with Kuwait since the conflict began last Thursday. US and British commanders admitted they had not expected such a determined defence of Umm Qasr, about 460km south of Baghdad, when they launched the assault that same day.
US and British officers see the Gulf ports of Umm Qasr and Basra further north as vital components in a plan to establish a humanitarian aid corridor for non-governmental organizations to deliver aid to the rest of the country. Fighting in the streets
Coalition troops faced the unpleasant prospect of fighting on the streets of Basra after encountering fierce resistance on the outskirts.
Military planners had expected little resistance in the city, pinning their hopes on the anti-Saddam Shi'ite Muslim majority to welcome their arrival.
Iraqi leaders, buoyed by the performance of their troops in parts of the south, vowed the Americans would find the going extremely tough in their final move on Baghdad.
"If the resistance in Umm Qasr took all this time and inflicted such casualties, you can imagine what the coming days will be," Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said.
|
News
