US and UK troops take strategic port

US and British troops have captured the strategic port in the southern Iraqi city of Umm Qasr, a British military spokeswoman said today.

“Umm Qsar has been taken by the 15th MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) which is under British command,” the spokeswoman said. “It has been taken.”

Umm Qasr, located along the Kuwait border about 290 miles south-east of Baghdad, gives Allied forces access to a port for military and humanitarian supplies and speed up the clearing of Iraqi resistance in the south.

The ground attack on Umm Qasr followed a night of intense shelling by US and British forces in the area.

Australian forces intercepted an Iraqi patrol boat filled with sea mines and other military equipment in the area of Khawr Abd Allah, a stretch of water in the approach to Umm Qasr, the spokeswoman said.

The troops also took several hundred prisoners, who were described as being draftees who were in very poor condition rather than “top-notch Republican Guard types.”

“I kind of felt sorry for them,” one marine said. “A lot of them looked hungry. They haven’t been fed in a while.”

He said they had fought with small arms, pistols, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

In London, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said British and American forces began the operation to take Umm Qasr early today while British Marines secured the tip of the nearby al-Faw peninsula, Iraq’s access point to the Persian Gulf and the site of major oil facilities.

He said the British army’s 7th Armoured Brigade – the Desert Rats – had crossed into Iraq early today, providing flank protection for the coalition thrust, and had engaged with Iraqi forces.

“The tip of the peninsula was secured as planned by 40 Commando Royal Marines, without damage to the oil infrastructure, averting any attempt by the regime to cause an environmental disaster in the Gulf,” Mr Hoon said.

Hoon said four Iraqis were killed in a “small-scale engagement” on the al-Faw peninsula. He did not specify where the fighting occurred.

He added that up to 30 oil wells had been set afire by Iraqi forces, but said these were among hundreds in southern Iraq.