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'We have to blow them up' Audrey Gillan in Iraq Tuesday April 1, 2003 The Guardian Three days after the loss of one of their colleagues in a friendly fire attack by two American A10 Thunderbolt aeroplanes, the Household Cavalry regiment has begun to engage the Iraqi 6th Armoured Division. They have tried to put their grief at the loss of Corporal Matty Hull aside and have advanced beyond enemy lines, dodging heavy rounds of incoming artillery. Outgunned, outsized in their small Scimitar armoured reconnaissance vehicles by Iraqi T-55 tanks and outnumbered, D Squadron - now down to 100 men...

Closing in ... British troops in KuwaitPicture: BRUCE ADAMS IN the ghostly green light of a soldier’s night vision binoculars, British troops in Kuwait move stealthily towards the Iraqi border.The men of 16 Air Assault Brigade prepared for war as US President George Bush today issued a 48-hour deadline for dictator Saddam Hussein to flee the country or face death.The sombre US leader set the clock ticking for war in a dramatic ultimatum beamed around the world.He delivered a stark message giving Saddam just two days to go into exile — and warned he must take his bloodthirsty sons and...

Paratroopers practise wearing gas masks.BRITISH troops massing in Kuwait have been ordered to carry their bulky protective suits with them at all times, in the clearest signal yet that an assault on Iraq is imminent. From midnight, they were all told to open up their Nuclear, Biological, Chemical (NBC) suits and take them wherever they go, indicating that military commanders fear Saddam Hussein will respond to the start of war by unleashing his full arsenal of weapons. "These suits are bulky and awkward to carry, so this shows how close we are to moving," said one of the troops ....

The battle flags were unfurled yesterday as the troops who will spearhead an invasion of Iraq gathered in formation at dawn to be told by their commanding officer to prepare for an advance to the border. Divided into their three companies, each with unit banners held aloft in the early morning breeze, the men from this battalion were promised by their colonel, John W Charlton, that he expected soon "you will all be heroes". He told them: "You may see enemy units that will fight tremendously hard so don't underestimate them. "When you go in you take the fight to...

THE moon lights up the desert for miles around, as the Warrior pitches forward into a deep trough in the sand throwing those inside out of their seats. Then it rises again, the nose of the armoured car pointing towards the stars, and crests the ridge, plunging on across the sand. "Smudge," says a disembodied voice from the back, addressing the driver, "you owe me one for that, that hurt." Even with the help of the moon, a clear sky and the benefit of night sights, it is not always possible to predict the vagaries of the sand formations, the...

BENEATH the same harsh desert sun, 300 miles apart, two leaders yesterday rallied their forces for a clash of armies — and of civilisations — that is now just days away. At a makeshift parade ground in northern Kuwait, Lieutenant-General Jeff Conway told a vast sea of troops that he had supreme faith in their ability and promised that their superior weapons, greater striking power and longer reach would prevail. At almost the same moment Sheikh Abdul-Razzaq Saadi was exhorting thousands of the faithful in Baghdad’s Mother of all Battles Mosque. “Oh God, strike the oppressors,” he cried. “Oh God,...

HEAVY-METAL music wafts up from the Navy bars, DVDs are playing on the ship’s televisions and Kylie calendars are pinned up on more than one cabin wall. But a more traditional form of entertainment is also proving a big hit among British forces in the Gulf. The Royal Marines band is taking helicopters and boats from its base on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Argus to play morale-boosting concerts for the sailors and soldiers on board Royal Navy ships. The 39 musicians, who all play two instruments and double up as stretcher-bearers to bring wounded personnel into the RFA Argus hospital,...