US troops poised for battle as advance on Baghdad gathers pace
Scores of blown-up Iraqi vehicles and dozens of dead bodies lined the roads where the Iraqis had built fighting positions. The dead were in uniform though it was unclear whether they were Republican Guard or regular army units.
Dozens of Iraqi soldiers have surrendered. In London, British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said coalition forces were holding more than 9,000 Iraqi prisoners of war. "Do not underestimate the task that still faces our forces or the length of time that it may take to complete," he said of the imminent battle for Baghdad.
The troops was slowly shuttling the prisoners to the rear as they pressed ahead toward the capital. With coalition forces now well inside the so-called Red Zone radiating from Baghdad, troops had breached the region in which commanders feared Saddam's forces might resort to the use of chemical or biological weapons.
The troops were expected to remain in chemical protective gear, and with temperatures nearing the 90s, they were hot and miserable.
So far, no such weapons have been detected. Iraq denies it still has weapons of mass destruction, and US troops have yet to locate any, although they've found hundreds of chemical protective suits.
As they advanced, Marines stopped every vehicle they met along the main road. Drivers and passengers got out of taxis and cars and stood by the road with their hands in the air.
At a Baath Party building flying Iraqi flags, a small group of men sat clustered in a grassy area around a woman dressed in a black chador and waving a white flag of surrender. Many groups of Iraqis sat by the roadside, waving and smiling at the Marines to show they were not combatants.
The sustained offensive saw US ground troops move to within striking distance of the capital on several fronts, with a twin assault from the Army and Marines closing in from the southwest and southeast.
Crossing the Tigris
The Marines southeast of Baghdad began to drive toward the capital yesterday protected by withering artillery and mortar fire. A massive convoy advanced in a long column along the Tigris River on the main road leading to the Iraqi capital.
Relentless fire from 155 mm howitzers rained on Iraqi positions near the town of Numaniyah as the Marine advance resumed. Black plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the town and its prized Tigris River crossing.
Dozens of tanks and thousands of soldiers had crossed the city's sole bridge, by nightfall. The Marines began laying their own pontoon bridge to carry over their heaviest trucks.
On the sides of the road was the grim evidence of the sporadic bursts of combat. The bodies of Iraqi soldiers lay about in the wake of the American advance. At the foot of the Saddam Canal, about 20 miles west of the Tigris, lay a large pile of the Iraqi dead, rotting in the morning sun. Cars here and there sat twisted and broken on the side of the road, riddled with bullet holes.
Having crossed the Tigris, the Marines, heading from the southeast as part of a multi-pronged assault, covered 20 miles yesterday morning, with tanks barreling at top speed. Iraqi tanks came under withering fire, and Iraqi troops once again offered little resistance.
While Saddam's best-trained and equipped fighters were dispatched to replace units shattered on Wednesday, by afternoon they were ceding this territory to the coalition forces. Many Iraqi units quickly abandoned defensive positions and fled, leaving behind trenches littered with everything from mortars and small arms to teapots and bedspreads.
The Republican Guard may be ceding this territory, thinking their forces must make their stand in Baghdad in the days to come. But in an unexpected sign of popular sentiment, some residents streamed out of the city and greeted the American troops as they approached.
The Battle for Kut
In Kut, a military town on the Tigris River southeast of Baghdad, Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines battled Iraqis building to building. The Marines jumped from rooftop to rooftop and went through all the rooms in some buildings.
They fought at close range in a date palm grove, tossing grenades at each other. Late in the battle, a small group of Iraqis with AK-47s tried a suicide charge against a tank.
"At the end, they came charging in a human wave 10 to 15 guys with AKs that we mowed down," said Lt Col BP McCoy.
He said 30 Iraqis were killed in the battle, and US forces destroyed seven tanks and 20 anti-aircraft artillery.
A Sea Knight helicopter evacuated three injured Marines, and one died in the helicopter as a doctor tried to resuscitate him. The other two had minor gunshot and shrapnel wounds.
Another Marine was killed when the truck he was driving ploughed into another on a dust-obscured road. At least 10 other Marines were injured.
On the outskirts of Kut, Marines opened fire on a military training academy, blowing a hole in a mosaic portrait of Saddam.
Residents said women and children had been sent out of the city in the past days and that pro-Saddam militias had taken young men away to force them to fight the advancing coalition forces.
"They want to give us machine guns and make us fight. We are civilians, how can we fight?" Kut resident Kasem Fasil said. "Some people, they didn't want to fight and they killed them."
Fasil and Ali Hussein, another Kut resident, said if the Americans go to Baghdad, they are afraid Saddam's forces will unleash chemical weapons on Shiite Muslim towns like theirs. Saddam rules over a Sunni Muslim regime.
The Marines say they found a cache of untouched chemical weapons protection suits at a bunker in the area.
Saddam Palace Raid
US special operations forces raided a presidential palace north of Baghdad yesterday, finding no trace of Saddam Hussein but seizing important documents, a Central Command spokesman said.
Earlier, a spokesman had said the palace was near Baghdad's airport, south of the capital.
Troops raided the Thar Thar presidential palace about 56 miles northwest of Baghdad, said Brig Gen Vincent Brooks. The palace has been used as a vacation retreat for Saddam and his sons in the past, but Brooks said no regime leaders were present when US forces raided the building.
Battle for Airport
US forces advanced onto the outskirts of Baghdad and were poised by the capital's main airport last night, coalition forces claimed.
It was reported late last night that dozens of Iraqis were killed in strikes on the airport.
US troops controlled the southern approaches to the capital, Major General Buford Blount, commander of the 20,000-strong US infantry division at the city's edge, said yesterday.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf denied US forces were outside Baghdad, saying US troops were "not even 100 miles" from the city. Earlier in the day Iraqi officials took journalists to the empty airport to show the world it was still under Iraqi control.
The Iraqi capital came in for another dose of aerial bombardment, with repeated air strikes pounding the southern fringes of the city.
Mr al-Sahhaf said 27 civilians were killed in the latest raids, while a hospital source said eight were killed and five wounded by a missile that hit a vegetable market on the edge of the city.
An infantry officer said: "I really do not think it's going to be too long" before US forces seized the airport.
Maj Gen Blount said his troops controlled a key intersection south of Baghdad after heavy fighting earlier yesterday and had the southern access to Baghdad blocked.
At US central command in Qatar, Australian Brigadier Maurie McNarn said two of Saddam's finest divisions had been knocked out of action by US attacks south of the capital over the past two days.
"They've taken a fairly heavy pounding," he said.
"We know that their command and control has been severely degraded. There is increasing disorganisation and there are indications of some fairly desperate manoeuvres," he said.
But Major General Stanley McChrystal, Joint Staff vice-director of operations, warned in Washington: "There remains tough fighting ahead."
"We are not expecting to drive into Baghdad suddenly and seize it in a coup de main or anything like that," he said.
The Baghdad and Medina divisions of the Republican Guard, considered Iraq's best trained and most motivated troops, were "no longer credible forces" but have been reinforced with regular Iraqi army forces, Maj Gen McChrystal said.
The Northern Front
To the north, Kurdish fighters backed by US planes clashed with Iraqi forces for control of an army command headqurters in Khazer on the road to the major northern city of Mosul.
Government forces retreated in several areas, and abandoned hundreds of bunkers and command centres east of Mosul city. Thousands of local residents streamed into the vacated position, taking away metal sinks, chairs, pieces of wood and other items.
A defiant Saddam hailed the "courageous" resistance put up by Iraqi fighters in the Al-Kut region in a message read on state TV by Mr Al-Sahhaf.
"Your noble struggle and your resistance have soothed our hearts," said the message to the local leader of Saddam's ruling Baath party, Ghazi Al-Obeidi.
"O courageous men, Ghazi and his comrades, may God bless you as you lead the valiant men ready for sacrifice to defend Iraq and Wassit," the province where Al-Kut is located, the message said.
The Southern Front
British forces battling for control of Iraq's second city of Basra were still facing resistance from around 1,000 militia, along with regular troops who have moved back into the city, a British military spokesman said.
Allied troops were last night just four miles from the centre of Basra and had set up camp on the outskirts of the city. Despite facing lively mortar defence from Iraqi fighters, coalition forces have made their way steadily towards Iraq's second largest city.
Soldiers crossed the Shatt al Basra waterway for the first time, embedded Sunday Telegraph journalist Martin Bentham reported.
Infantry from the 1st Battalion Irish Guards travelled in Warrior armoured personnel carriers, relying on support from Challenger 2 tanks and RAF Lynx helicopters.
Some Iraqi forces were caught off guard one Fedayeen paramilitary was found asleep and killed as he tried to flee with a rocket-propelled grenade. Troops raided a shanty town on the outskirts of Basra, finding six mortars, 37 rocket-propelled grenades and a large anti-tank weapon.
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