Posted on 04/05/2003 4:07:26 PM PST by blam
The dagger to the heart
Armoured assault
By Anne Penketh
06 April 2003
It was, the US military had promised, "a dagger clearly pointing at the heart of the regime".
Before dawn yesterday, after securing the runway of the airport on the city's southwestern outskirts despite fierce Iraqi resistance, US troops and tanks thrust close to the heart of Baghdad.
A column of 26 Abrams tanks and 10 Bradley fighting vehicles from the US Army's 3rd Infantry division (Mechanised), headed into the city from the south. On their 25-mile journey, which took three hours to complete, they cheekily swung up Hilla Road towards the Tigris river, before following the main road through Dawra suburb, and travelling past Yarmouk. They then continued along the highway to link up with other units at the airport, now renamed Baghdad International, before returning south.
The US forces rolled towards Baghdad from three directions as they began to encircle the city. The 101st Airborne Division swung north-west, to block off the main road leading to Saddam Hussein's home city of Tikrit. A separate force from the 1st Marine Division swept in from the east, rumbling over a bridge near the Rashid military airport.
The surprise incursion into Baghdad appeared to be a first approach to probe defences and raise the psychological pressure on the regime, which continued to bluster that it was routing the enemy.
In any case, the sight of the world's mightiest army in their narrow, dusty, streets must have been a stunning sight for Baghdadis who were confidently informed by their government yesterday morning that "everything is OK".
The Iraqi Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, said that Iraqi defenders had recaptured the airport from the US troops, in a claim dismissed as "frankly groundless" by the US. Mr Sahaf said "hundreds" of Americans had been killed in the battle for the airport.
But the Americans did admit to "sporadic but lively" resistance from Iraqi forces as the US tanks and armoured vehicles rolled towards central Baghdad.
One member of a US tank crew was reportedly shot dead as the column advanced to Dawra, coming under fire from Iraqis installed on rooftops with rocket-propelled grenades. The black-uniformed Fedayeen militia of Saddam Hussein appeared for the first time in the capital, as artillery fire echoed through the streets.
While US television networks (Fox News)filmed groups of Iraqis waving in welcome to the 3rd Infantry Division, thousands of other residents gathered their belongings and took the main road north out of the city, causing traffic jams as they tried to escape the feared offensive.
Back at the airport, reports of suicide bombers were rattling the troops. The Americans admitted that although they controlled the runway, they had still not secured outlying areas. The 101st was scouring a network of tunnels under the airport, searching for fighters. Hundreds of Iraqis were reportedly killed in the two-day battle for the airport, including suicide bombers with explosives strapped to them. The discovery came after the Information Minister warned that "unconventional acts" would be committed against the US forces.
By yesterday afternoon, US Central Command was claiming that they had taken several "objectives" surrounding Baghdad in the north and north-west, as the American "noose" was being slung around the city.
But they were still preparing for the worst: last night, the US air force was readying for close support of US troops engaged in bloody urban warfare.
By Donald Macintyre at Central Command, Qatar
06 April 2003
Independent (UK)
US forces began what Allied commanders hope is the final and decisive phase of the campaign to oust Saddam Hussein's regime by penetrating urban Baghdad yesterday, in the first military incursion into the city by an invading force since 1941.
In a public demonstration that the Iraqi regime was no longer in full control of its capital, a column of tanks and armoured vehicles of the 3rd Infantry Division made a 25-mile journey through the city in broad daylight. They passed within two miles of the Iraqi dictator's official residence and four miles from the city centre.
The incursion was a remarkable climax to an unprecedentedly rapid 350-mile advance from the Kuwait border which began only 17 days ago and comes a week after Allied forces appeared to have been stalled by bad weather and harassment by irregular forces, triggering criticism that the war plan had seriously overstretched US forces.
Despite fierce, though sporadic, fighting, the column completed a three-hour sortie which took it from the south to within half a mile of the Tigris river before heading west to the newly seized and renamed Baghdad International Airport. Last night, however, US Central Command admitted they had not yet fully secured the airport. "It is an ongoing operation, and we are in the process of securing it," a spokesman said. He refused to confirm reports of US casualties in fighting at the airport. Earlier the Iraqi regime had claimed that the airport had been retaken by Republican Guard forces.
At US Central Command, General Victor Renuart, director of operations, said that "the message" of the raid had been to "put an exclamation point on the fact that coalition troops have the ability to come into the city at places of their choosing. It demonstrated to the regime that they do not have control."
He said that confirmed casualty figures were not yet available, adding: "The adrenaline was flowing and the battle was raging." Gen Renuart said the purpose had been to "show the Iraqi leadership that they do not have the control they speak about on their television".
The government in Baghdad had denied the US forces were anywhere near the capital. "This showed them it's not true. We're here," said Major General Buford Blount, commanding the 3rd Division. The appearance of US troops in metropolitan Baghdad had psychological and political, as well as military, value.
US military sources here were careful not to claim that the incursion meant that they now controlled the south-western sector of the city through which they passed yesterday. But Colonel David Perkins, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the US 3rd Infantry, said: "Now we basically own the main road going into Baghdad, so we've cut Baghdad in half, so to speak."
He said: "There was some very intense fighting, with just about every kind of weapons system you can imagine.
"It was a non-stop gauntlet of both heavy systems as well as light infantry on roofs, shooting down on top of tanks with RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] and machine guns. It was a full spectrum of very close urban combat."
The incursion came after thousands of US troops had gathered on Baghdad's outskirts – the 3rd Infantry Division arriving from the south-west and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force from the south-east. Meanwhile, the 101st Airborne took up positions to the north as checkpoints operated on the road from the capital to Tikrit, Saddam's home base, and reportedly the site of alternative command and control facilities.
The Iraqi military, in a statement read on satellite television, claimed US forces were repulsed when they tried to advance on Baghdad from the south: "We were able to chop off their rotten heads."
On the southern outskirts, Marines engaged in close-quarters fighting with pro-Saddam volunteers from Jordan, Egypt, Sudan and elsewhere, according to Lt Col BP McCoy of 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines. "It's like a jihad. They were given a rifle and told to become a martyr," said Lt Col McCoy, whose troops used bayonets while battling in the reeds of a marsh. At Baghdad's airport, US troops used explosives to clear abandoned buildings and examined an underground complex. Lt Col Lee Fetterman, a battalion commander with the 101st Airborne Division, said several hundred Iraqis were killed at the airport, some with bombs strapped to them who apparently intended to try suicide attacks. Gen Renuart said the Americans' hold on the airport was firm, despite Iraqi counter-attacks on Saturday, and indicated one runway could soon be usable.
I sincerely doubt this.
Yup. I read that they were laying dead, bombs still attached.
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