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Invading forces face bloody road to Baghdad Jordan Times, 3/27/03 AS-SALIYAH, Qatar (AFP) — After a week of racing through the Iraq desert, US and British forces are knocking on the door of Baghdad but facing a bloody road ahead — and watching their backs — as they drive on the Iraqi capital. US and British officals insist their invasion is on track despite everything a hostile country can throw at them, from surprisingly stiff Iraqi resistance to blinding sandstorms that neutralised their most fearsome helicopters. But with Iraq's elite Republican Guard lying in wait in the approaches to Baghdad and concern mounting over how to protect extended supply lines from the south, illusions of a quick and easy victory were gone. “We cannot know the duration of this war, yet we know its outcome. We will prevail,” US President George W. Bush said Tuesday after days of sharp clashes in southern cities such as Nassiriyah, Basra and Umm Qasr. US forces closed in on Baghdad with the mechanised Third Infantry Division less than 100 kilometres south of the capital and the 101st Airborne Division moving up from the southwest. US marines were to the east, pushing northward in two prongs after bulling through the Euphrates River crossing of Nassiriyah amid some of the sharpest fighting of the war, according to field reports. Coalition officials said a showdown loomed around the Shiite Muslim centre of Karbala about 80 kilometres from Baghdad, where the armoured Medina Division of the Republican Guard has taken up positions. Further north was believed to be the Republican Guard's other armored division, the Hammurabi, standing watch between a lake and the western entrance to Baghdad. US marines, meanwhile, appear to be converging on the city of Kut, about 150 kilometres southeast of the capital, and were bracing for a date with the Republican Guard's mechanised Baghdad Division. Despite howling storms that cut visibility in some places to virtually zero, US and British warplanes pummelled Baghdad and its suburbs through the night and into the morning in an apparent bid to soften up the Republican Guard. Dozens of tank-busting Apache helicopters, the stars of Gulf War I in 1991, have also made runs at Guard positions this week, setting the stage for what could be a classic duel of heavy armour. US Army forces backed by Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles already tore a group of outgunned Iraqi militia to pieces in the town of Najaf south of Karbala, their officers said on Wednesday. They said some 650 Iraqis were killed, including 200 in fighting around a suspected chemical weapons plant. The Americans reported no losses, but they acknowledged the rest of their campaign would not be bloodless. “The toughest fight is ahead of us. We know it will be a very tough battle,” General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the ABC television network Tuesday. A young US marine in southwest Iraq explained to a journalist “embedded” with his battalion: “The closer we get to Baghdad, the better the Iraqi troops are. “Saddam had 12 years to prepare for Gulf War II. He has all his stuff well-planned and set-up in advance,” said Corporal Ryan Bonzell, 22. Baghdad was not the only worry for the Americans, who took a risk in sidestepping Iraq's cities in their gallop north from Kuwait to avoid messy house-to-house fighting and civilian casualties. The tactic helped them make good time — one officer for the Third Infantry Division called its success in moving 400 kilometres in little over a day one of the greatest desert maneuvers since World War II. But it has also left behind pockets of resistance and unrest in several cities as well as roaming bands of militia that could threaten its tenuous supply lines. British forces in the southeast are also struggling to tame the city of Basra after finally securing another key outlet, the port town of Umm Qasr, which they needed to begin distributing relief supplies to a beleaguered population. The New York Times, quoting senior US military officers, reported Wednesdeay that US and British forces had decided to deal with militias attacking them in the south before taking on President Saddam. There was no official confirmation from Washington. Another concern is that a war within the war could erupt in Iraq's north if Turkey fulfills earlier threats to send in tens of thousands of troops to make sure the Kurds stay in line. Turkey already has several thousands of soldiers in the area since 1997. Its army chief, Hilmi Ozkok, said any extra troops would be sent in only in coordination with the United States.
Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah's.
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