Posted on 03/26/2003 7:48:20 PM PST by Sabertooth
All the links here should be live.
Today's Action
6) A missile fired at Kuwait from southern Iraq is shot down by a Patriot missile. No damage is reported in the area.
5) The bombing of Baghdad continues overnight. Iraq claims cruise missile strikes have killed 36 civilians and injured 215. The U.S. acknowledges aiming at missile launchers concealed in Baghdad neighborhoods, but denies targeting residents.
4) In a reported friendly fire incident, about 30 U.S. Marines at a command post are injured by shell and mortar fire believed to have come from American troops in an Nasiriya; there's no information from U.S. Central Command on the report.
3) In Basra, coalition forces destroy part of a column of 120 Iraqi vehicles. The British say the vehicles were manned by inexperienced troops, rounded up by Saddam loyalists to keep them from deserting.
2) In clashes outside Karbala, Iraqi armored personnel carriers approach coalition positions but are blasted back by U.S. warplanes.
1) About 1,000 U.S. paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade jump into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, opening up a new front. The area contains key oil centers and could serve as a northern front for striking Baghdad.
Day Seven
- U.S. military intelligence officers say 3,000 Republican Guard troops have been spotted moving from Baghdad southeast on Highway 7. They are apparently headed toward Al Kut, where another 2,000 Iraqi troops have been spotted toward the south. The route avoids U.S. Army forces but leads directly to Marines who have been fighting around an Nasiriyah.
- Two cruise missiles land in the northern Baghdad community of Al-Shaab, killing 14 people and injuring 30, according to Iraqi defense officials. U.S. military officials deny targeting the residential area, but can't say whether the strike was caused by Iraqi weapons, or coalition missiles that went off course.
- British forces continue the effort to wrest control of Basra from 1,000 die-hard Iraqi loyalists. There are reports that some sort of insurrection occurred earlier in the city, but details are sketchy.
- Bombing of Baghdad continues as allied forces strike Iraqi state-run television, knocking the signal off the air. The broadcast resumes at daybreak.
- Army forces kill up to 500 Iraqi troops after coming under attack near An Najaf. there are no U.S. casualties in the battle, although two U.S. tanks are damaged.
Day Six
- U.S. ground forces engage elements of the Republican Guard for the first time, CBS News sources say. The action involves troops on the leading edge of the road to Baghdad.
- In a friendly fire incident, an American F-16 fires on a U.S. Patriot missile battery about 30 miles south of Najaf. There are no U.S. casualties.
- U.S. ships in the Red Sea launch more than 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets in Iraq.
- An Iraqi missile aimed at Camp Doha in Kuwait is successfully intercepted by a Patriot, the Pentagon says.
- Huge explosions to the south shake buildings in the heart of the capital. With coalition troops closing in, the streets are nearly empty as people hunker down in anticipation of the battle for Baghdad.
- British forces surround Basra amid reports of a civilian uprising, which a British commander says may have started when the Iraqis fired on their own people. A "friendly fire" incident here kills two British soldiers.
- Coalition forces break through the enemy line at an Nasiriyah and capture an Iraqi military hospital that was being used as a military staging area. Marines fight a pitched battle to the north in which they kill or capture some 200 Iraqi soldiers and take no casualties.
- U.S. forces pound military targets near Karbala with howitzers and rockets in an all-night artillery barrage that lights up the clouds like lightning. Coalition forces will cross the "red line," which could possibly trigger the Iraqi's use of chemical weapons, for the first time in this city 50 miles south of Baghdad.
- Umm Qasr, where U.S. and British forces have faced Iraqi resistance for days, is declared "safe and open" by the British. Supplies and humanitarian aid should begin arriving through this port town within 24 hours.
Day Five
- A British soldier is killed in combat near Az Zubayr, the first British combat death since the war began.
- U.S. helicopters begin attacking Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard forces arrayed around Baghdad. The city is pounded by the strongest airstrikes since the first day of "shock and awe." One large explosion shakes a Ministry of Planning building within the Old Palace.
- U.S. troops find a suspected chemical weapons factory near the Shiite holy city of Najaf. A mobile lab is called in to search for evidence that it is a so-called dual use site. Outside the city, U.S. soldiers skirmish with Iraqi forces before dawn; the Iraqis shoot rockets and anti-aircraft guns at the Americans.
- An Iraqi missile is intercepted by a Patriot battery during an attack on coalition forces in Kuwait.
- The Army's 3rd Infantry Division advances to Karbala, about 50 miles form Baghdad. Meanwhile, Iraqi television shows footage of what Iraqi officials say is a U.S. Apache Longbow attack helicopter shot down by peasants in a field near the city. The Pentagon confirms that one Apache is missing. Tape of two men alleged to be the captured pilots is aired by the Iraqis later in the day.
- A U.S. missile hits a passenger bus carrying Syrian workers fleeing Iraq, killing five and injuring 10, according to Syria's official news agency. A U.S. general expresses regret for the incident, saying the bomb was aimed at a bridge 100 miles from the Syrian border and the bus came into view too late to stop the hit.
- A day after bloody battles in an Nasiriyah, a convoy of hundreds of coalition vehicles and thousands of Marines occupies the road leading to a pontoon bridge across the Euphrates River. Because of the stiff resistance troops have met here, military officials might sidestep the city rather than capture it - or they may decide to send a message by doing just the opposite. Troops search house-to-house to flush out resistance.
- Coalition forces skirmish with Iraqi forces before dawn in the area around Basra. Troops have remained outside the city, not attempting to move through it because of pockets of resistance from irregular units. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says "urgent measures" are needed to restore the city's electricity and water supply.
Day Four
- Approximately 50 Marines are killed or wounded in fighting around an-Nasiriya. They defeat a highly-trained Iraqi militia group called the Sedaveen in an eight-hour battle for control of two strategic bridges in the city. A U.S. general says 12 U.S. troops are reported missing from battle.
- Iraq captures several prisoners of war in the south, and parades some of them on television.
- CBS News has learned that Special Operations troops have deployed near Baghdad, as Iraqi troops appear to be drawing back toward the capital city. More explosions rock Baghdad as the rolling air campaign continues.
- A British Royal Air Force fighter aircraft is mistakenly shot down by a Patriot missile battery near the Iraqi border with Kuwait, killing two British fliers.
- An American soldier from the 3rd Infantry Division is killed in a vehicle accident as the division's 2nd Brigade rolls to within 100 miles of Baghdad. One hundred Iraqi soldiers die in clashes with the troops and 20 others are taken as POWs.
- British troops sit on the outskirts of Basra, hoping Iraqi troops will surrender rather than fight in the streets.
- U.S.-British invasion forces face street fighting from guerrilla soldiers in Umm Qasr. The city has been secured by the coalition despite these pockets of resistance.
Day Three
- Grenades are thrown into three tents at a 101st Airborne command center in Kuwait, killing one American serviceman and wounding 13 others. A U.S. soldier is detained as a suspect in the attack.
- The Army's 3rd Infantry Division defeats the Iraqi 11th Division to capture the city of an-Nasiriya as well as two bridges that cross the Euphrates, opening the road to Baghdad.
- Four F/A-18 Hornets from the USS Kitty Hawk's Golden Dragons squadron report dropping seven laser-guided bombs on artillery pieces at Al-Qurnah, north of Basra, in support of the advancing 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
- An American Navy officer and six Britons die in a mid-air collision of two British navy helicopters over the Persian Gulf.
- U.S. forces fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at suspected positions of the Ansar al Islam guerrillas, a group the United States accuses of ties to al Qaeda terrorists.
- Pentagon officials confirm three U.S. missiles may have gone astray in Iran.
- Marines capture Basra's airport after a gunbattle with Iraqi troops. U.S. aircraft bomb Iraqi tanks protecting bridges as coalition troops move on this strategic city. Iraqi forces respond with artillery fire.
- The air war on Baghdad resumes with a massive explosion that shakes the center of the city just before dawn. The attacks continue into daylight, with plans to hit 1,000 targets using 600 cruise missiles and virtually every type of warplane in the American arsenal, including the B-2 stealth bomber.
Day Two
- Iraq's entire 51st Infantry Division - numbering about 8,000 soldiers and including about 200 tanks -- surrenders as coalition forces advance toward Basra, Pentagon officials say.
- Air strikes hammer target in Mosul, Kirkuk, Basra, an-Nasiriya and Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.
- Enormous explosions rock Baghdad as the U.S. aerial campaign begins. The attack includes large numbers of Tomahawk cruise missiles. The Iraqis respond with anti-aircraft shots. Many buildings in the heart of the capital are set ablaze, including three major fires at the Old Palace compound. As the fires rage, aircraft are heard over Baghdad for the first time.
- A U.S. Marine from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force dies while fighting enemy Iraqi forces near Umm Qasr.
- U.S. Marines gain full control of the strategic port of Umm Qasr, according to British military officials.
- American forces seize the airfields known as H-2 and H-3 in far western Iraq. Iraqi troops offer little resistance.
- A U.S. Marine from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force dies in the advance on the Rumeila oil field.
- Iraq fires a missile into Kuwait, but it is destroyed by a Patriot interceptor.
- Advancing through the deserts of Southern Iraq, U.S. Marines run into mortar fire as they take the main highway leading to the key southern Iraqi port city of Basra.
- British troops move on the strategic al-Faw peninsula, Iraq's access point to the Persian Gulf and the site of major oil facilities.
- Some 200 Iraqi soldiers surrender to the U.S. 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit just over an hour after it crosses the border from northern Kuwait. American and British troops encounter both hostile fire and white flags in their race across the desert.
- Eight British and four American soldiers die in a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crash, about 9 miles south of the Iraqi border town of Umm Qasr. A British military spokesman says it was an accident.
Day One
- The initial salvos against Baghdad consisted of 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from Navy ships in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, as well as precision-guided 2,000-pound bombs dropped from two F-117A Nighthawk stealth jets.
- Iraq retaliated Thursday by launching missiles at U.S. troop positions in Kuwait. Troops donned gas masks several times. The Kuwaiti Defense Ministry said six missiles were fired, two of them Scuds, which Iraq is prohibited from having.
- During the day, U.S. forces in northern Kuwait opened a thundering barrage of artillery across the desert border, along with volleys of rockets. The U.S. 3rd Infantry Division attacked Iraqi troops with howitzers and multiple launch rocket systems, firing more than 100 shells.
- Under the shelter of night, and with the support of heavy bombing, the 1st Marine Division entered Iraq at around 9 p.m. local time.
- As the Marines entered Iraq, they could see burning oil wells that sent a black cloud into the night sky under a nearly full moon.
- The Marines also had some skirmishes with Iraqi troops. They opened fire with machine guns on an Iraqi T-55 tank and finally destroyed it with a Javelin, a portable anti-missile.
- Soon after the incursions were reported, sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles hit Baghdad. They almost simultaneously hit the main presidential palace near the Tigris and the Ministry of Planning, which was in flames.
- Explosions are reported in the northern city of Mosul.
Latest Action - CBSNews.com
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.