Posted on 04/01/2003 8:33:49 PM PST by JohnHuang2
US Marines in decoy mission as POW rescued in Iraq
By Adrian Croft
NEAR NASSIRIYA, April 2 (Reuters) - U.S. Marines staged a decoy attack on targets in the city of Nassiriya, including a Baath party building, to allow special forces to rescue a prisoner of war held there, military sources said on Wednesday.
The Marine attack helped special forces rescue Private First Class Jessica Lynch, 19, from an Iraqi hospital in the southern city where she had been held since her maintenance convoy was ambushed by Iraqi forces on March 23.
"U.S. Marines sent a large force led by tanks and armoured personnel carriers to hit targets in the centre of the city and to seize a key bridge over the Euphrates while the hospital raid was under way," a military source said.
"The operation was timed so that U.S. forces rolled over the highway...bridge 15 minutes before the raid."
The source told a Reuters reporter travelling with the Marines that the hospital where Lynch was being held was called the Saddam Hospital and was two km (one mile) north of the Euphrates river which runs through the city.
The Marines' decoy attack involved a number of targets, including an artillery and air attack on a Baath party headquarters, which the source said was destroyed.
They also hit the home of a local Baath party official, a telecommunications cable repeater station and a headquarters of the Fedayeen paramilitary organisation.
"These were all destroyed," the source said, adding that there were no injuries on the Marine side, which met little or no resistance from Iraqi forces.
U.S. Marines fought their way across the bridges of Nassiriya, which lies some 375 km (235 miles) southeast of the capital, last Tuesday but did not take control of the city from mainly paramilitary fighters. Since then, Iraqi forces have carried out several ambushes in the area.
Nassiriya residents told reporters on Tuesday that a small number of Fedayeen militia and loyalists to Saddam's Baath Party continued to put up sporadic resistance to U.S. forces who have pummelled targets in the city for the past week.
In a message read by an Iraqi television announcer early on Wednesday, President Saddam Hussein was quoted urging his men in Nassiriya to resist U.S.-led forces, saying their fighting spirit set an example for all Iraqis to follow.
"Fight them with the same passion and spirit, and let every one of you and the people of Nassiriya and Dhiqar remember his faith, character and sense of duty. Then the enemy will be defeated in other cities as they were outside your city," said the message the announcer said was dated April 1.
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