Battles
Intensify
to Baghdad
(Updated March
25, 2003)
Baghdad and
Mosul were under air attack Monday morning as strategic bombings
continue. Ten US soldiers were confirmed killed in the Nasiriya
battle, and two British troops are missing. Coalition forces have
had some tough fights in Iraq, but coalition forces still made
good progress on the ground, air and sea, said Army Lt. Gen. John
Abizaid, deputy commander of the Combined Forces Command.
"United
States Marines defeated an enemy attack there while sustaining
a number of killed and wounded in the sharpest engagement of the
war so far," he said.
Reports indicate
that the UK led groups of U.S. and UK Marines secured the crossing
of the Euphrates river, destroyed several tanks, some anti-aircraft
batteries and some infantry. They are closing in on Baghdad even
through a horrible sandstorm and not much sleep.
Coalitions
officials said Monday they have information that Saddam had given
orders to use chemical or biological weapons against coalition
troops once they come within a certain radius of Baghdad. They
said the fighting has been fierce and unconventional.
Troops have
already discovered weapons that were not declared to the U. N.
inspectors in various hiding places including one near a cemetery.
Reportedly, an entire MIG was hidden to look like part of a bridge
in one find.
General Victor
Renuart said Tuesday that Coalition forces destroyed 6 satellite
jamming devices, which Iraqi forces were using against American
precision guided weapons.
Prisoners
of War
The pilots
of the downed Apache helicopter were shown Monday on Abu Dhabi
television, the Iraqis showed two U.S. with what appeared to be
a tiny cup of water. Chief Warrant Officer Ronald D. Young Jr.,
26, of Lithia Springs, Ga., and Chief Warrant Officer David S.
Williams, 30, of Orlando, Fla. are the latest POWs that the U.S.
is determined to set free.
About 3 days
into the battle to disarm Saddam and his regime, an Army supply
unit took a wrong turn and ended up ambushed by irregular Iraqi
forces. Twelve Americans are missing from the unit. Arab satellite
television channel al Jazeera broadcast Iraqi television videotape
of the captured Americans.
There the
Iraqi captors exhibited their barbaric and Nazi-like evil to the
world thru t.v. as gruesome video of U.S. soldiers–apparently
dead from execution type wounds to their heads, were shown of
them on Al Jazeera television with their pants disrespectfully
pulled down or unzipped, while laying on the floor in pools of
blood.
U.S. and
British Officials said that those involved in these atrocities
will be prosecuted for war crimes.
The Iraqi
captors talked excitedly about the dead POWs and they also displayed
five POWs that were interrogated on the video shown–4 men and
1 woman–they appeared to have been beaten and were scared. Out
of respect and in accordance with the Geneva Convention, U.S.
media has refrained from showing the video, yet Arab television
stations have been looping the video.
Saddam’s
Fayadeen Terror Group
Central Command
in Qatar, said the Iraqi resistance that Coalition forces encountered
were the Fayadeen. Known to be a brutal paramilitary group and
called Saddam’s ‘thugs’, they generally wear all black, but they
have been disguising themselves as innocent civilians and villagers
lately.
At one incident
a civilian bus filled with people in civilian dress approached
Coalition forces and once they were close enough they opened fire.
Centcom said
they are "trying to save a doomed regime. We have not seen
on the battlefield a single coherent military move. These moves
are dangerous to the troops in the field, but they are not dangerous
to the mission."
Army Brig
Gen. Vince Brooks, deputy operations officer for U.S. Central
Command, noted several incidents of Iraqi ruses during the day.
In one incident, Iraqi soldiers displayed a white flag followed
by artillery fire. In another, Iraqi soldiers dressed as civilians
ambushed coalition forces. "None (of the ruses) pose a danger
to the mission," Brooks said.
Abizaid pointed
out coalition operations around Iraq continue to put pressure
on Hussein’s regime. Air strikes keep hammering Iraqi command
and control nodes and communications facilities. In the north,
coalition aircraft and special operations personnel are targeting
the Republican Guard.
"In and
around Baghdad, we continue our air and special operations activities
with good success," he said.
In the south,
aircraft are providing close-air support to coalition land forces.
Coalition forces have captured more than 2,000 Iraqi prisoners.
Abizaid said the reason coalition units haven’t seen mass numbers
of surrenders as they did in 1991 is because Iraqi troops are
not trapped as they were in Kuwait in 1991. Still, they are voting
with their feet.
"Here
in the areas where we’ve been encountering regular Iraqi forces,
by far the majority of the units have just melted away,"
he said. "We find substantial amounts of abandoned equipment
on the field and in the regular army there is clearly very, very
little will to fight."
Disrupting
Terror Networks in Iraq
At a Centcom
briefing this week, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks showed slides that
demonstrated the great care given to protect Iraqi civilians and
destroy ‘only’ selected Saddam regime targets. Slides showed the
successful destruction of one building while leaving the others
around it standing. The building housing the Iraqi intelligence
service arm that ties to terrorism throughout the world was one
of the buildings destroyed with precision guided weapons. Brooks
said one can see "again, the surrounding area is intact,
and only those buildings that were targeted have been destroyed."
The Iraqi
intelligence service is known to have helped Mohammad Atta with
the 9-11 terror attacks.
Operation
Iraqi Freedom "is all a part of the war on terrorism,"
said U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz when speaking
to reporters on Sunday.
The United
States wouldn’t be risking service members’ lives in Iraq today,
Wolfowitz pointed out, solely because Saddam Hussein is a dictator.
"He
is a tyrant, but more importantly, he’s a tyrant who threatens
us by his connections to terrorism and his weapons of mass destruction,"
Wolfowitz remarked during an interview with American Forces Radio
and Television Service.
Wolfowitz
noted that "quite a few terrorists died" during March
21 strikes against a terrorist complex located in northern Iraq.
And American
and coalition forces "are still chasing terrorists in Afghanistan
(and) we’re still finding evidence in Pakistan or in the Philippines
that’s leading us to terrorists who are planning attacks against
the United States," he pointed out.
"This
is a global war," Wolfowitz emphasized, that is "going
to go on for some time."
Anti-terrorism
forces are conducting a variety of valuable tasks, he noted, whether
on the front lines in Iraq, in the mountains of Afghanistan, performing
civil actions in the Philippines, or somewhere in the United States
examining complex collected intelligence.
"It’s
all part of a single effort that’s really government- wide,"
Wolfowitz pointed out, noting that U.S. intelligence and law enforcement
agencies have achieved "great successes" against terrorists.
"But
a lot of those successes would not have been possible without
the work that the military is doing," he declared.
Wolfowitz
assured those service members engaged in activities outside Iraq
that their efforts are also being observed — and appreciated.
Abizaid said
of the Coalition forces and the Operation, "We are soldiers,
sailors, airmen and Marines in a combined and a joint team that
is one of the most integrated and well- trained forces ever put
together. There won’t be anything that stops us on the battlefield."
AFPS
sources contributed to this story