Allies secure airport as crucial forces base

TWO US soldiers were killed as American forces secured Baghdad airport yesterday, a crucial step in their bid to establish a base of operations for coalition forces just outside the Iraqi capital.

One officer was killed and his driver wounded when their vehicle came under mortar fire from an Iraqi position outside Saddam International Airport while an engineer platoon sergeant was shot and killed by “an enemy infiltration attempt” on the periphery of the complex, said Colonel Will Grimsley, commander of the US Army’s 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade.

Saddam International Airport was promptly renamed Baghdad International Airport by the military.

“It is a gateway to the future of Iraq,” said Brig Gen Vincent Brooks, US Central Command spokesman.

In capturing the airport, US tanks punched through a perimeter wall and rumbled past a towering portrait of President Saddam Hussein.

Soldiers conducted a building-by-building sweep for Iraqi defenders. And the airport entrance closest to Baghdad was sealed off.

Brig. Gen. Brooks said US forces faced “very uncoordinated, small-unit attacks” from remnants of Iraqi units.

“They were soundly defeated in each case,” he said at a briefing at the Central Command headquarters in Qatar.

The capture of the airport prevents Iraq’s leaders from fleeing by air and enables coalition forces to use it now or in the future, Brooks said.

“Most important, we preserved it for the future of Iraq,” he said.

To the southeast of the capital, meanwhile, Marines reported that about 2,500 Republican Guards surrendered between Kut and Baghdad, US Central Command said yesterday.

The surrender apparently occurred after clashes of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and the Republican Guard’s Baghdad Division, said Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, spokesman at US Central Command.

He stressed that Central Command had only received the report from the Marines on the ground and couldn’t confirm it outright.

“We have reports of approximately 2,500 soldiers of the Iraqi Republican Guard laying down their arms in their confrontation with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force,” Capt. Thorp said, citing reports from the Marines.

He said those who showed a propensity to fight would become prisoners of war, while others who have shown they do not want to fight will be allowed to return home.

US Central Command has said it has more than 4,500 prisoners of war (POWs) in custody. The attack on the airport began at dusk yesterday with units of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division moving in to seize the 2.5-mile main runway.

Gunshots were heard from inside. It was unclear how many Iraqi troops remained in the airport.

Navy warplanes from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk dropped scores of satellite- and laser-guided bombs on the airport and a nearby military complex overnight and early Friday, officials said.

F/A-18 Hornets and F-14 Tomcat strike fighters hit a hanger and fuel depot at the airport with a barrage of 500-pound laser-guided bombs, said Lieutenant Brook DeWalt, a spokesman for the ship.

Eight 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs were dropped on a target listed as a military complex near the airport, Lt DeWalt said.

Other targets included artillery posts, a possible surface-to-air missile site and bunkers, he added.

The airport is a key first objective for infantry and Marines converging on the capital. Securing it would allow coalition forces to bring in more troops, military equipment and humanitarian aid.

Group Captain Al Lockwood, a spokesman for British forces in the Gulf, called the airport “a jewel in the crown to the coalition.”

It must be a great loss to the regime, at losing something that will provide us with a great capability,” Capt. Lockwood said.