Republican Guards head for showdown with US troops

SADDAM HUSSEIN’S Republican Guards were headed on a collision course with American forces south of Baghdad last night in the first sign of an Iraqi offensive out of the capital.

A huge Iraqi convoy rolled south of Baghdad last night, headed toward American forces aiming for Saddam Hussein’s seat of power.

Iraqi troops also went on the offensive out of Basra in southern Iraq. British military intelligence confirmed last night that coalition warplanes had attacked a huge convoy of tanks and armoured personnel carriers which were heading south-east from Basra towards the al-Faw peninsula.

The movement of Iraqi armour appeared to be a counter-attack to recapture ground lost over the last two or three days. British radar spotted the column of between 70 and 120 vehicles following the coast road along the Shatt al-Arab waterway and a number of fighter jets were scrambled to engage the column. British troops were positioned along the coast road as well as around Basra, amid reports of an uprising in the city. Those reports have been dismissed by the Iraqis.

British forces continue to report surprise resistance in Basra, which they had hoped would welcome them. They said most resistance came from paramilitaries, the Fedayeen loyal to Saddam Hussein, using guerrilla tactics inside the city, rather than from the regular army.

One US Defence Department official said commanders were surprised by the Fedayeen’s capability, and that as a result, military commanders were changing their tactics, making a great effort to defeat the Fedayeen, rather than bypass them on the way to Baghdad.

“We’re going into a hunting mode right now,” said Marine Lt Col BT McCoy in Iraq.

But British troops have been reluctant to enter Basra aggressively to combat the paramilitaries, because of the risk to civilians.

Meanwhile, Iraqi guerrilla tactics and sandstorms halted the advance of US Marines at the town of Ash Shatrah, about 40 km north of Nasiriya.

The Marines responded by calling in artillery strikes on Iraqi positions in the town.

The Iraqis say that about 200 houses in the city have been destroyed, and about 500 people wounded. An American intelligence officer has said that up to 650 Iraqis who attacked the armoured column were killed. That contrasts with an earlier estimate by the Pentagon of between 150 and 300 Iraqi dead.

Iraqi guerrilla tactics and sandstorms are slowing the advance of the US Marines south of Baghdad.

Further north, the US 7th Cavalry has been involved in the largest battle of the war so far, near the central town of Najaf.

With US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld under fire from former soldiers in the US about his tactics, the US yesterday decided to send another 30,000 troops to join the campaign in Iraq.

The US’s hi-tech 4th Infantry Division and other units totalling more than 30,000 troops were scheduled to fly to the Gulf to join the invasion of Iraq today and tomorrow.

The division, with a total of 16,000 troops at Fort Hood and Fort Carson, Colorado, has been awaiting deployment for more than two months. It was scheduled to go to Turkey to open a northern front against Baghdad, but Ankara refused to grant basing rights for American forces. The division’s equipment is being shipped from waters off Turkey to Kuwait.