Posted on 04/03/2003 3:39:26 AM PST by kattracks
U.S. says Republican Guard units moving south
By John Chalmers
AS SAYLIYA CAMP, Qatar, April 3 (Reuters) - Elements of four Iraqi Republican Guard divisions were moving south on Thursday to engage U.S. troops as they closed in on Baghdad and its airport, U.S. military officials said.
Washington says that two of the Republican Guard's divisions which had blocked the advance of U.S. forces to the Iraqi capital have been smashed and put out of action. Iraq denies that its elite force has suffered major losses.
"The Baghdad Division and the Medina Division of the Republican Guard are no longer effective fighting forces," Captain Frank Thorp at U.S. Central Command forward headquarters in Qatar told Reuters.
"We have reports that members of the other four divisions are moving south. We are engaging them, but we don't yet have any direct confrontation with the Republican Guard divisions as a whole."
Earlier, U.S. military sources said units of the Guard were heading south from Baghdad as vanguard U.S. units have advanced to within about 30 km (19 miles) of the southern outskirts of the city. U.S. military sources said the Iraqis on the move were believed to be from the Hammurabi Mechanised Division.
SPECIAL FORCES ON THE MOVE
The Republican Guard, believed to be fiercely loyal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, consists of six full divisions, each of which has about 10,000 men.
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies website (www.iiss.org), the Hammurabi Division has dug in on the southwest of the city, the Nebuchadnezzar division holds positions to the north and southwest, the Adnan to the north and the Al Nida to the southeast.
The military sources said that U.S. spy planes spotted the Iraqi reinforcements moving during the night, apparently to bolster positions along the Euphrates river and around Saddam International Airport which are under threat from U.S. troops.
Some U.S. troops have secured positions on the eastern side of the Euphrates after crossing a strategic bridge on Wednesday.
Thorp said U.S. troops were "outside of the Baghdad airport" and positioning themselves to fight for control of it. The airport is about 20 km (12 miles) southwest of the centre of the sprawling city of five million people.
He said U.S special forces had gone into Iraqi installations near Baghdad including a palace overnight, taken a look around and pulled back again.
"Coalition special forces are operating all around the whole country... specifically over the last 24 hours special forces are operating closer to Baghdad and have moved in to save the dams, save bridges as well as moving into command and control facilities and bringing down very important regime positions," he told Reuters.
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other senior figures have many palace compounds in and around the sprawling Iraqi capital.
Thorp said bridges and dams had been "wired for destruction" by the Iraqis and U.S.-led forces had gone in to save them.
04/03/03 06:36 ET
INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH RODE THE FIVE HUNDRED
the vastly overrated "DemocRATic Guard", has got to be feeling a little like common cannon fodder about now, as we surgically chew them up.
The Iraqi Minister of Lies and Fishing Tackle said that the Republican Guard was standing by to repulse the "invasion." "The Guard is not absent; we have merely furloughed some of them so they could go home for the first of the month to pay their bills and get their checking accounts in order. When they return, they will expel the infidel invaders and crush the imperialist running pig dogs with all dispatch." The minister then went on to explain how he was the reincarnation of famed ballerina Isadora Duncan.
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