Free Republic

<p>US ground forces punched through a crucial pathway known as the Karbala Gap at dawn today and surrounded the city of Karbala, advancing toward a much-anticipated assault on Baghdad. The movement occurred after elements of the US Army's Third Infantry Division unleashed an assault on key Iraqi Republican Guard divisions. The attack signaled a new phase in the war: engaging Iraqi tank divisions in ground fighting within a defensive perimeter less than 50 miles from the capital.</p>

Rockets lit up a calm, starlit sky early Wednesday, beginning a what was expected to be major battle for the Karbala Gap. This battle was said to determine the fate of the war in Iraq. Troops felt very little resistance as they moved northeast of Karbala, about 50 miles southwest of Baghdad. The 3rd Infantry Division moved 20 miles past its stopping point and has encountered no enemy troops and no dead bodies in the bombed emplacements where the Republican Guard was believed to be. In Baghdad, huge explosions echoed across the city early Wednesday, and a plume of...

SOUTH OF KARBALA, Iraq - The first decisive battle of the war in Iraq may be coming in a place called the Karbala Gap. After days of pounding the Medina Division of Iraq's Republican Guard with airpower and artillery, the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division is preparing to launch the war's first major ground attack against Saddam Hussein's best soldiers. If the 3rd Infantry can punch through the Gap, a 20- to 25-mile wide sliver of land about 50 miles south of Baghdad between the Euphrates River and Lake Razzaza, that would open the southern and western approaches to the...