-Caveat Lector- http://www.hindustantimes.com/onlineCDA/PFVersion.jsp? article=http://10.81.141.122/news/181_220337,001300180012.htm Stiff resistance slows allies' drive in Iraq Agence France-Presse Nasiriya (Iraq), March 24
Aiming for Saddam Hussein's seat of power, US-led warplanes and helicopters attacked Republican Guard units defending Baghdad while ground troops advanced to within 80 kilometres of the Iraqi capital. President George W Bush put a $75 billion price tag on a down payment for the war. The helicopter assault marked the first known engagement between forces in central Iraq, and many of the American craft were hit by Iraqi ground fire. One went down behind enemy lines the cause was unknown and the Pentagon said the two-person crew had been taken prisoner. Five days into Operation Iraqi Freedom, resistance prevented American and British forces from securing the southern cities of Basra and An Nasiriyah and thwarted efforts to extinguish burning oil wells. "These things are never easy," conceded British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on the day his country suffered its first combat casualty of the war. "There will be some difficult times ahead but (the war) is going to plan despite the tragedies." Saddam sought to rally his own country in a televised appearance. "Be patient, brothers, because God's victory will be ours soon," he said, appearing in full military garb and seeming more composed than in a taped appearance broadcast last week. "Coalition forces are closing in on Baghdad," Maj Gen Stanley McChrystal told reporters at the Pentagon. The US Air Force flew more than 1,500 sorties over Iraq on Monday. So far, 80 per cent of the bombs and missiles used by the Air Force have been guided by lasers, radar, satellites or video cameras, a defence official said. The Pentagon says the munitions are highly accurate, but Iraq claimed that 252 civilians had been killed Sunday, including 194 in Baghdad. It did not give any figures for military deaths. Asked about ground forces, McChrystal said, "We have not gotten into direct firefights with Republican Guard forces." That seemed a matter of not much time, though. Iraqi television showed pictures of one American helicopter in a grassy field, men in Arab headdresses brandishing automatic rifles as they did a victory dance around the aircraft. Hours later, Iraqi television showed two men it said made up the crew. he US War commander Gen. Tommy Franks confirmed a two-man crew was missing. Franks told reporters that 3,000 Iraqi prisoners had been taken. In London, the Ministry of Defence announced the first British combat death, a soldier who fell in fighting near Al Zubayr in southern Iraq, near the city of Basra. BRITISH TROOPS WITHDRAW FROM BASRA Stiff resistance forced British troops to withdraw today from Basra to regroup, British military officials said. Elements of Britain's Seventh Armoured Brigade, the Desert Rats, withdrew from the southern Iraqi city — the nation's second largest — after coming under attack by mortars and guerrillas disguised in civilian clothes. The brigade had at one point surrounded the city. BASRA LOYAL TO SADDAM Military officials admitted they had vastly underestimated the strength of Iraqi resistance and the loyalty of Basra's population to the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. "We're currently taking stock of the situation. We were expecting a lot of hands up from Iraqi soldiers and for the humanitarian operation in Basra to begin fairly quickly behind us, with aid organisations providing food and water to the locals," Captain Patrick Trueman said. "But it hasn't quite worked out that way. "There are significant elements in Basra who are hugely loyal to the regime." US and British forces were having a tough time taming Iraqi resistance in the country's southeast, outside Basra and the key deep-water port of Umm Qasr. Military planners had expected little resistance in the region because they thought the Shiite Muslim majority long repressed by the Sunnis from the north would be glad to be rid of Saddam. "We always had the idea that everyone in this area hated Saddam. Clearly, there are a number who don't," Trueman said. The decision to withdraw came after British units came under fierce mortar fire as they blocked the main routes into the city from the north and south.US-led forces battled stubborn Iraqi fighters for control of key towns in southeast Iraq Monday, as a defiant President Saddam Hussein vowed he would win the war aimed at ousting him. US OFFENSIVE US troops backed by Abrams tanks and Cobra helicopters launched a fresh assault on the town of Nasiriyah, a key crossing point over the Euphrates river that has escaped coalition capture due to dogged resistance from the Iraqis. A US Marine officer said between 4,000 and 5,000 troops were involved in the offensive, which he pledged would be an all-out blitz, saying: "We're going straight through this city. It will be a Hail Mary with guns ablazing." The new bid to take Nasiriyah came on the fifth day of fighting, after a weekend of setbacks for US and British forces, with an unclear number of troops reported dead or missing and several others taken prisoner by Iraq. US commanders said less than 10 US soldiers were killed in combat in and around Nasiriyah, others wounded and a dozen missing, but a medical officer who did not wish to be named said that the toll was much higher. Iraq said 25 US or British troops had been killed in or near Nasiriyah. Britain's ministry of defense confirmed the death of the first British ground soldier in Iraq, without giving further details. HELICOPTER DOWNED The US-led military campaign, aimed at removing Saddam from power and disarming Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction, suffered other disappointments on Monday, with the downing of an Apache helicopter. In response to deepening fears that the conflict could drag on due to the stiffer-than-expected resistance met by US-led forces, world stock markets took a dive, the dollar fell off sharply and oil prices rose. VICTORY IS NEAR: SADDAM Amid the intense clashes, a solemn Saddam clad in military uniform assured his people that "victory is near". "The more they advance into Iraqi territory, the more they head into a dead end," he said, following reports that coalition forces were just 150 kilometres from Baghdad. Saddam laid to rest intense speculation that he had been killed or injured in air strikes carried out in the early stages of the war, which broke out early Thursday, by referring to ongoing battles in Umm Qasr. The Iraqi president is known to occasionally use look-alikes as decoys. Commenting on the broadcast, British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said "analysis continues" of the speech, and that it was not live but pre- recorded, although it remained unclear when. "Hit your enemy with force and precision," Saddam told his people. "Cut their throats. The enemy is stuck in Iraqi territory. Hit it." Despite Saddam's strong words, US forward units pushed onward toward Baghdad, following another night and day of heavy bombings in and around the capital that left five civilians dead, according to residents. Battling sandstorms that slowed their progress through the desert, US infantry were camped about 160 kilometres south of Baghdad near the Shiite Muslim pilgrimage center of Najaf, flanked on the east by US Marines with the 101st Airborne Division closing in from the southwest. DRAMATIC GAINS: GEN FRANKS US Army General Tommy Franks, who is directing the coalition campaign from a high-tech headquarters in Qatar, hailed the "rapid and in some cases dramatic" progress made by coalition air, ground and special forces. In northern Iraq, US-led forces pummeled targets around the oil city of Kirkuk on Monday and moved more forces into eastern Iraqi Kurdistan, as pro-US Kurdish forces signalled the possible opening of a new front against Saddam. But Blair warned Turkey against sending any troops into the Kurdish- controlled north of Iraq, telling lawmakers it would be "entirely unacceptable for there to be any incursion." IRAQ HAMMERS MORALE Iraq continued to hammer away at coalition morale, saying it had foiled an attempted British and US landing near Kirkuk and reporting 24 civilians dead and more than 400 hurt in air raids around the country on Sunday. Baghdad also won a battle in the information war, following the broadcast of grisly pictures of dead US servicemen and several scared-looking prisoners of war, including a woman -- a clear effort to humiliate Washington and rally support for Saddam in the Arab world. On Sunday, Al-Jazeera television broadcast images of what looked like the bodies of dead US soldiers -- images kept off the screens of US viewers. Blood-drenched corpses lay stretched in a makeshift morgue, the body of one resting in a pool of blood. Others appeared shot in the head. Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf said Monday that Iraq had taken more US or British prisoners of war than the five previously shown, while Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said they would be treated in accordance with the "teachings of Islam". Bush vowed that anyone who did not treat POWs under the Geneva conventions would be later dealt with as war criminals. "If there is somebody captured, and it looks like there may be, I expect those people to be treated humanely," he said Sunday. "If not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals." The International Committee for the Red Cross said showing the soldiers on television was a violation of the international rules of war and vowed to ask Iraqi authorities for access to the coalition prisoners. Franks said the United States had about 3,000 Iraqi prisoners of war, with US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noting that all of them were being treated in accordance with international law. Washington acknowledged that coalition forces had endured the most trying day yet of combat on Sunday, with Rumsfeld saying: "There have to be tough days ahead." "Wars are unpredictable. There are still a large number of difficulties and things that could go wrong that are still ahead of us," he added. In Russia, Moscow denied it had sold arms and weapons systems to Iraq, rebuffing US accusations that Russian companies had supplied Baghdad with anti-tank missiles and satellite jamming devices. 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