| Subject: Coalition Forces Enter Baghdad |
Author:
breaking news
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 02:22:12 04/05/03 Sat
In a move that could signal the beginning of the final and most difficult stage of Operation Iraqi Freedom, American troops entered Baghdad Saturday morning.
The Army's 3rd Infantry Division met Iraqi resistance in a predominantly industrial part of the city, Fox News has learned.
Reuters reported that six to eight coalition tanks were probing the city's southern border as three blasts were heard in central Baghdad and around the city's outskirts.
With U.S. commandos already inside the Iraqi capital, columns of Army and Marine armored vehicles advanced from the south. They met occasionally stiff resistance, fighting Iraqi tanks as well as army, Republican Guard and Fedayeen forces.
"They're pretty much cut off in all directions," Air Force Cpt. Dani Burrows said Saturday morning. "Pretty much what you've got here is a chokehold around Baghdad."
Throughout the night, Army tanks, infantry and elements of the 101st Airborne Division defended the newly seized international airport outside the capital, while thousands of Iraqis fled the city amid fears of brutal urban warfare.
After flying overhead on a bombing run, Lt. Cmdr Mark Johnson said he could see pockets of fighting in the area of the airport and several other parts of the city. "There was lots of smoke and fire all along the roads leading into Baghdad, around the airport in particular," he said.
In Washington, a senior administration official said the airport was under U.S. control but not considered secured, in part because it was within range of artillery inside the capital city.
Nonetheless, the White House continued to suggest that the war's outcome was a foregone conclusion. "We are almost in control of their country, and we'll be in complete control soon," Secretary of State Colin Powell said in Washington, as President Bush met with Iraqi exiles to discuss a postwar administration.
The White House also announced that Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair would meet next week in Northern Ireland, the second meeting of war allies since the fighting began.
Meanwhile, as former POW Jessica Lynch recovered at a hospital in Germany, the Pentagon revealed that the bodies found during the raid in which she was rescued included eight members of her unit.
A senior Defense official also said that the large stash of a mysterious white powder found in an industrial plant near Baghdad is not a chemical weapon. Investigators are still determining exactly what the substance is and what it might be used for, but officials are certain it is not a synthetic toxin of any sort.
The facility, situated about 25 miles south of Baghdad, is identified as the al Qa Qaa industrial complex. The plant was responsible for the production of phosgene, a chemical compound that has several civil and military uses. U.N. weapons inspectors visited the site more than a dozen times before the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Continued Threats From Iraqi Leaders
Earlier in the day, Iraq's information minister threatened coalition troops with "non-conventional" attacks -- a "kind of martyrdom operations" -- but denied weapons of mass destruction would be used.
And in a tape broadcast on Iraqi television, a man in full military uniform purporting to be Saddam Hussein read a statement calling on Iraqis to strike at coalition forces at the gates of the capital. Saddam, in his statement, referred to the March 23 downing of a U.S. helicopter, which indicates the tape was made after the war began.
"Perhaps you remember the valiant Iraqi peasant and how he shot down an American Apache with an old weapon," Saddam said. "Hit them with force, resist them, o people of Baghdad, whenever they advance upon your city, and remain true to your principles, your faith and your honor."
Later in the day, Iraqi TV showed video of Saddam being cheered by the city's residents as he walked through bombed-out areas of Baghdad. In one portion of the tape, smoke can be seen rising in the distant sky.
Saddam's only other purported appearances have been in regime-provided videotapes that could have been made before the war began. There has been much speculation that he was killed or wounded in the first air strike of the war, on a bunker in Baghdad on March 20.
So do the tapes prove Saddam is alive?
"Not necessarily," a senior U.S. official told Fox News. "It could. It is the most specific reference to a recent event we have heard."
But the official also noted that "the intelligence community has reached no conclusions" about when the tape was recorded and whether it was after the war began. "It is not proof," he said.
A Day of Allied Military Success
Marine commanders reported the surrender of about 2,500 members of the Republican Guard along the road between Kut and Baghdad. Some told their interrogators they had been told by leaders of Saddam's Baath Party that Americans would burn and pillage Iraq and take no prisoners.
Army troops advanced on Baghdad, as well, and tank units intercepted a battalion of Republican Guard armor about 25 miles outside the city. The Americans called in air cover, and reported the destruction of 10 Iraqi tanks.
"I think we're in a mad dash to destroy as much of their military as possible," said Capt. Chris Carter of Watkinsville, Ga.
In addition, American and British warplanes bombed targets with virtually no resistance for the 16th straight day.
In the north, air attacks cleared the way for Kurdish forces to seize a key bridge at Khazer, near the major city of Mosul.
In the southern of city of Basra, where Iraqis have held out for days, Saddam's forces shelled British troops.
But while the Bush administration seemed increasingly confident, an incident proved coalition forces remained in harm’s way.
A car bomb killed three uniformed personnel at a checkpoint when a pregnant woman jumped from the vehicle screaming for help.
Iraqi television on Friday broadcast statements by two Iraqi women it said were responsible for the attack. U.S. military officials said it was impossible to know if the women voluntarily took part in the terrorist attack.
Allies Maneuver Around Iraqi Capital
Inside the airport after an all-night tank and infantry battle, American troops swiftly renamed it. Saddam International Airport no longer, it is now Baghdad International Airport.
American troops moved through its underground tunnels to clear them of danger.
One brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, helicopters included, arrived to use the grounds as a base of operation close to the capital. The 101st is high trained in urban warfare.
"We are fighting in urban terrain now, and to be effective, in this terrain you need light infantry forces. This is their forte," said Col. John Peabody of the 3rd Infantry Division.
A few miles to the east, in a city largely blacked out since Thursday, Iraqis fled northward to avoid advancing American troops. Vehicles of every description loaded with men, women, children and their possessions clogged exit routes in backups that stretched for miles.
At the same time, thousands of army troops and militiamen dug more trenches and foxholes.
American commanders were close-mouthed about the next part of the battle plan for Baghdad, although Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks told reporters that American commandos were "in key locations" in the capital.
Thousands more troops were on the way. "I could see columns of the U.S. Army and Marines moving forward," said Cmdr. Brian Corey, who flew a bombing mission over Baghdad on Thursday. "That was an impressive sight."
Marines advanced from the southeast, rolling through villages and towns past now familiar sites of discarded Iraqi military uniforms. Crowds sometimes lined the roads, and some Iraqis voiced their hopes in a blend of English and Arabic.
"Thank you. Thank you. Baghdad, Baghdad. Yallah (Go). Yallah," they said.
Despite American battlefield successes, the war claimed the life of an American journalist for the first time. Michael Kelly, editor-at-large for The Atlantic Monthly, died Thursday along with a U.S. soldier when their Humvee went into a canal.
Flag-draped coffins carrying Americans killed in action were received at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, along with nine sets of remains found buried outside an Iraqi hospital where a U.S. prisoner of war was rescued earlier in the week. Military officials said the unidentified remains were believed to be those of U.S. soldiers.
The Pentagon lists seven remaining POWs, and the International Red Cross said during the day it had not yet received permission from Iraq to visit them. By contrast, the IRC said it has seen more than 3,000 Iraqi prisoners. in U.S. and British hands.
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 