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Posted on 04/08/2003 1:34:25 PM PDT by Shermy
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The matchup Tuesday beneath a highway cloverleaf in Baghdad wouldn't qualify as a battle. But after hours of potshots from Iraqis and fire from U.S. snipers, well over a dozen Iraqis were dead and many more were wounded, without a single Marine injury.
The Iraqis, some in streets to one side of the U.S. troops, others in a field on another side, mainly waved Kalashnikov rifles or took random shots that whizzed past the Marines.
"There's just no coordination," said Staff Sgt. John Kelley, 29, of Toronto, Ohio.
In one of many small-scale engagements in and around Baghdad on Tuesday, two Marine snipers on a rooftop and others in tanks and Humvees topped with machine guns killed approaching Iraqis one by one throughout the morning, often from hundreds of yards away.
When members of the 3rd battalion, 7th Marine Regiment reached the elevated cloverleaf in the southeastern part of the city before midnight Monday, all was quiet but for bombs exploding in the distance. Then, about 4:30 a.m., two Marines snipers on a rooftop noticed a truck pull up a few hundred yards away.
Using his night vision scope, Sgt. Joshua Hamblin, 26, of Wichita, Kan., saw the silhouette of a man with a rifle, took aim and shot him. He fired again at another man, and a Marine machine gunner also opened fire. The remaining men from the truck grabbed the two bodies and sped off.
About two hours later, another man wandered into the street carrying a rifle.
"He had no idea we were here," Hamblin said. After he was hit, Hamblin said, another man grabbed the rifle and ran off as the dying man begged for help.
For the rest of the morning, armed Iraqis, often alone or in pairs, wandered toward the Marines only to be shot by the snipers. Many died instantly, others were wounded and dragged by comrades into alleys or driven away.
At one point, a man in a black ski mask with a rifle in the bed of a truck pulled up behind a group of civilians. The snipers said they aimed high to scatter the civilians, then shot him.
As Hamblin and Cpl. Owen Mulder, 21, of Wilmont, Minn., continued to scan under the elevated highway, Marines in Humvees kept watch for suicide bombers.
About 7 a.m., a truck with a machine gun mount — but no machine gun attached to it — raced down the highway, and the Marines started firing, using machine guns, grenade launchers and their rifles.
The truck flew into reverse, racing back about 100 yards before stopping. One man opened the a door and fell out. Then another, apparently missing an arm, ran down the highway. Some Marines prepared to shoot, but their commanders stopped them.
"He's wounded, he's no threat to us. Why do you want to kill someone who's wounded?" Kelley asked.
A few minutes later, ambulances arrived to tend to the injured.
Behind a sand berm facing the highway, Kelley and Cpl. William D. Palmer, 22, of Kansas City, Mo., suddenly felt bullets flying past and turned to see a minibus racing less then 200 yards away.
As heavy gunners raked the bus with gunfire, a man in an Iraqi uniform jumped out and was chased through the street by rounds from a machine gun, kicking up dust at his feet and then killing him.
Medic Brent Cook, 23, of Houston, raced out to help the other two Iraqis in the bus and discovered military identification in one man's pocket.
"You are a soldier?" he asked.
"Please don't kill me," the man responded.
Palmer said he thought the soldiers were probably heading home, discovered too late the Marines were there and fired in fear.
By afternoon, the shooting had died down, though sniper shots snapped out several times an hour. One tank drove into the residential area, blew up a car people had been taking ammunition from, then backed out.
Snipers targeted another car; it burst into flames, then seconds later a rocket propelled grenade shot straight up from the back.
Near the underpass, a Marine vehicle with speakers blasted a message in Arabic: "People of Baghdad, do not attempt to pick up the weapons. Any attempt to pick up the weapons will be a threat against us and have serious consequences."
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi forces staged a major counterattack Tuesday morning, sending buses and trucks full of fighters across the Tigris River in a failed attempt to overrun U.S. forces holding a strategic intersection on the western side of Baghdad.
At least 50 Iraqi fighters were killed, said Capt. Philip Wolford a company commander with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division. Two U.S. soldiers were reported wounded — one seriously — by rooftop snipers later targeted by coalition air support.
U.S. troops strafed the Iraqis from A-10 Warthog attack planes and opened up with artillery and mortar fire. About an hour after the firefight began, Wolford moved his tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles forward again, retook the intersection and began pursuing the remaining Iraqi defenders.
The fighting was escalated by a U.S. decision not to destroy bridges across the Tigris, allowing the Iraqis easy access to cross the river, said Col. David Perkins of the 3rd Infantry. The U.S. troops control of most of the Tigris' west bank, Perkins said.
As night fell on the capital, a series of loud explosions rattled central Baghdad — some of it apparently from U.S. tanks on the west bank. Attacks by allied aircraft remained intensive, with warplanes from the U.S.S. Constellation bombing artillery sites and other targets in the vicinity of Baghdad.
The fighting had almost completely stopped Tuesday night, with U.S. troops hastily constructing wire barriers on bridges across the Tigris.
Early Monday, U.S. tank-borne forces stormed into central Baghdad and turned a presidential palace on the west bank of the Tigris into a base of operations. But on Tuesday, Perkins said, about 500 Iraqi forces took part in the counterattack. They were a combination of special Republican Guard, Fedayeen and Baath Party loyalists — "a lot of civilian-dressed fighters," he said.
The Iraqi attack began shortly after dawn, when more than 20 buses and trucks dropped off dozens of Iraqi foot soldiers firing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at U.S. tanks blocking an intersection leading to a bridge over the Tigris, Wolford said.
Two A-10s strafed the building tops and the street with 30mm rapid-fire cannon that reverberated across the city. Wolford, of Marysville, Ohio, asked if the jets could also hit bunkers built in a city park.
"If they can hit that bunker complex. we'll be set to go back in," Wolford told a flight controller directing the pilots. Two subsequent strafing runs prompted Wolford to comment, "They're a beautiful thing."
In the past two days, the Army has seen few Iraqis give up. Many have fought to the death, an indication these were hard-core loyalists, and there were short exchanges of fire around the city.
"As regime forces are located, they are being attacked," said Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, a U.S. Central Command spokesman. "We are continuing to expand areas of influence in the city, and removing them from regime control."
One such area claimed Tuesday was Rasheed Airport, a military facility in the southeast corner of Baghdad. U.S. Central Command in Qatar said Marines overcame Iraqi resistance at Rasheed and were working to tighten their control of the airport.
A Reuters cameraman and a Spanish TV cameraman were killed and at least three other journalists were injured Tuesday when their hotel in central Baghdad was fired on, apparently by a U.S. tank. The Americans said they were retaliating against fire in the area of the hotel, the Palestine, where many foreign reporters covering the war are staying.
About two dozen journalists held a candlelight vigil in memory of the two dead cameramen on the lawn in front of the hotel, according to Arab television reports.
In a separate incident, the Arab TV network al-Jazeera reported that a U.S. plane attacked its office on the banks of the Tigris River, killing a reporter.
Explosions, the thud of shells landing, anti-aircraft and machine-gun fire and the drone of aircraft filled the air in Baghdad on Tuesday.
For the first time since the war began, residents of the capital could see, rather than just hear, allied aircraft. A lone fighter jet flew over Baghdad, swerving, diving and, at times, causing a boom that rocked the city.
State television went off the air around midmorning. Many residents were hunkered down in their homes. But some civilians seemed to casually go about their business with a Kalashnikov in hand.
In U.S.-controlled regions, Iraqi civilians left their homes to cheerfully greet U.S. troops. Many began volunteering detailed information about where Saddam loyalists might be found.
Traffic built up toward the north of the city and thousands of people continued to flee Baghdad to the relative safety of the north and northeast. They fled in all sorts of vehicles — buses, trucks, minibuses and pickup trucks — and took food, clothes, mattresses, blankets and kitchen utensils.
Some cars sagged under the weight. Other battered vehicles broke down on the road, worsening the bumper-to-bumper congestion.
Long lines formed at gas stations. Some ran out of gas and closed; others were taken over by the U.S. military. Uncollected garbage piled up in some sections of the city.
In the well-to-do al-Mansour neighborhood, Iraqi rescue workers used a bulldozer to recover bodies Tuesday from debris left by an American airstrike aimed at killing Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and his sons the day before. The blast destroyed three houses, sending their steel ceiling beams flying at least 100 yards down the street.
Around daybreak, troops with the Army's 101st Airborne Division launched an attack after coming under fire from a former Republican Guard headquarters about half a mile from the international airport outside Baghdad. Two Iraqis were reported killed in the gun battle, while there were no U.S. casualties.
"To stay here as much as they've been bombed and the artillery used, they either have to be dumb or have some heart," said Spec. Steven Shalloway, 21, of Kingsport, Tenn.
The Americans secured a hill outside the airport overlooking a residential neighborhood, turning on loudspeakers to advise people they should stay inside to avoid any crossfire.
U.S. forces also were searching an amusement park and zoo where there could be weapons of mass destruction, Perkins said. Initial searches turned up hundreds of anti-aircraft guns and artillery pieces.
"The tactical side of this is about to come to an end," Perkins said.
Translation: buses and trucks attempted to approach tanks. Bad decision, and a regrettable waste of some fine vehicles.
Just our boys "disarming" Iraq.
Couldn't resist, sorry.
You could look at it as a mercy killing, but then, every killing described in this article could be looked at that way. Talk about putting someone out of their misery!
I was gonna say,"Don't shoot that man. He's disarmed."
Marine Snipers are among the most cost effective warriors we have. One cartidge = one dead enemy. They can reach out day or night and touch some one several hundred yards away.
FRegards, Vets
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By SONJA BARISIC, Associated Press © March 4, 2003
NORFOLK -- After watching dozens of Navy ships deploy in recent months in preparation for a possible war with Iraq, sailors on three amphibious ships left today in the last major deployment from Hampton Roads for the near future. ``Trust me, we all want to go over there and get it over with,'' said Capt. David C. Taylor, commander of Amphibious Squadron Six. He said the crews had trained hard and had been ready to go since late November but their ships had been held in reserve.
The amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima left Norfolk Naval Station on its maiden deployment, along with the amphibious transport dock ship Nashville. The amphibious dock landing ship Carter Hall left Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base.
The ships carried about 2,000 sailors and were headed to Morehead City, N.C., to pick up about 2,200 Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit based at Camp Lejeune.
A banner reading ``Let's Roll'' hung from the Iwo Jima, the lead ship of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group. The banner also bore a quote from President Bush -- ``We will not tire, we will not falter, we will not fail'' -- and a drawing of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York.
The excited crew made the banner to remind them of the purpose of their mission, said Capt. John W. Snedeker Jr., commanding officer of the Iwo Jima.
``You can actually feel the energy coming out of the Iwo Jima today,'' Snedeker said.
Navy officials said the ships left three days early on a regularly scheduled deployment. Snedeker said he told his crew to be prepared to be gone for a long time.
A couple of hundred family members watched from behind a fence in a parking lot near the pier at the Norfolk Naval Station.
Ernest Johnson of Knoxville, Tenn., had been at the base since about 6 a.m. to see his 26-year-old son, Petty Officer 3rd Class David Johnson, leave on the Iwo Jima.
``It certainly would be wonderful if none of them had to go,'' the older Johnson said. ``But it's something he has to do and I'm proud of him. He's carrying on the Navy tradition and keeping us all free.''
Since late August, 38 Navy ships carrying 29,000 sailors have deployed from Norfolk and most are in the Middle East and Mediterranean region.
Many of the piers of the naval station, the world's largest navy base, are empty. About half of the 75 ships based in Hampton Roads are at sea.
Hmmm. I would say that a major counterattack would require a corps or so. This sounds like a firefight.
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