Street fighting on road to Baghdad
American soldiers on the road to Baghdad fought bloody street-to-street battles with Iraqi forces loyal to Saddam Hussein while coalition aircraft bombed southeastern Iraq to open the way for a possible new front in the crucial battle for Baghdad.
South of the capital, the US-led coalition pounded Iraq’s Republican Guard with bombs and missiles in an effort to soften up Saddam’s most loyal forces assigned to defend Baghdad.
On the ground, US and British soldiers fought fierce battles with small groups of Saddam loyalists.
Around Karbala, 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Baghdad, US Army troops skirmished with Republican Guard forces early today in the coalition’s first major ground battle with Saddam’s best-trained troops, US defence officials said.
Near Diwaniyah, 130 kilometres (80 miles) southeast of Baghdad, Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 4th Regiment, cleared out Iraqi mortar nests, snipers and tanks along a line several kilometres (miles) wide.
Lt. Col. B.P. McCoy said they killed at least 75 Iraqis and took 44 PoWs.
Marines said Iraqis fought with grenade launchers, machine guns and small arms, trying to ambush the attackers in any way they could.
“They were shooting from buildings, from dugout positions, from holes, from everything. They would jump out to shoot. They were behind buses – you name it they were there,” said Cpl. Patrick Irish.
Iraqi TV, quoted by the British Broadcasting Corp.’s monitoring service, said Saddam’s Fedayeen, a loyalist militia, had destroyed 35 tanks, six armoured personnel carriers and an Apache helicopter, killing their crews and 23 other “enemy soldiers” between March 30 and April 1.
In the country’s south, allied forces began delivering humanitarian aid to try to coax Iraqi civilians to abandon Saddam, and US and British officers said they were seeing more cooperation from civilians.
Warplanes bombarded southern Baghdad and in southeastern Iraq, coalition aircraft bombed Iraqi forces at Kut along the Tigris River.
A US Marine intelligence analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the bombardment was to clear the way for ground forces, which could open the way for an eastern front in the attack on Baghdad.
Huge explosions echoed across Baghdad early today, and a plume of white smoke was seen rising from the southern end of the old palace grounds in the capital.
More explosions rocked Baghdad in the half hour following the first blast at 3am local time, including the old palace area. The palace is the ceremonial seat of government on the west bank of the Tigris, one rarely used openly by Saddam.
