US forces were reportedly just 10 kilometres south of Baghdad today, with Republican Guards advancing towards them, as the long-anticipated ground battle for Baghdad loomed.
Leading elements of the US 3rd Infantry, which is making a twin-pronged advance, were reported to be coming closer to the outskirts of the capital, while elements of four Iraqi Republican Guard divisions were today reported to be moving south to meet the US advance.
Captain Frank Thorp at US Central Command forward headquarters in Qatar said: ”We are engaging them, but we don’t yet have any direct confrontation with the Republican Guard divisions as a whole.”
Live television pictures from the battlefield showed an armoured US column engaging sporadic resistance but heading relentlessly north towards Baghdad.
Earlier, Pentagon officials said that Republican Guard reinforcements were moving out of the city towards the approaching US troops, apparently to replace the units that the US said were destroyed by air assaults yesterday. Recent reports suggested that coalition forces were fanning out as they reached Baghdad, with some elements close to the capital’s main airport. The advancing forces were now deep inside the so-called ”red line” zone, within which it is feared the Iraqis may use chemical weapons.
Despite the searing heat, US troops were wearing chemical protection suits over their body armour in case of such an attack.
As the advance on the capital continued, there was growing speculation of a large-scale battle with Republican Guards. However, US commanders indicated they would imitate the tactics adopted by British forces at Basra for dealing with Baghdad.
US forces have praised the ”impressive” British approach around Basra, in which a full-scale assault has been avoided in favour of a methodical wearing-down of defences, with raids allied to a ”hearts and minds” approach to the local population.
”In Baghdad, we will definitely use a lot of the effective techniques and utilise some of the larger strategic lessons we learned in the British efforts over Basra,” a senior military official told The Washington Times today.
This morning, US artillery fired repeatedly at Iraqi positions to the north and east of Baghdad. Howitzers shelled the town of Numaniya, about 65 kilometres south-east of the capital, where marines took a bridge over the river Tigris yesterday.
Two US aircraft shot down
A US FA-18 Hornet warplane and a Black Hawk helicopter were shot down over southern Iraq, it was reported today.
The fate of the plane’s pilot was not known, but the Pentagon said that up to seven soldiers died in the helicopter. The plane was based on the aircraft carrier USS Kittyhawk.
The Hornet — the first fixed-wing coalition aircraft to be brought down by enemy fire since the war began two weeks ago — was downed by a surface-to-air missile, US TV networks said. The Pentagon said that the Black Hawk was hit by small arms fire.
The Black Hawk was downed near Kerbala, the scene of fierce street-to-street skirmishes between the US 3rd Infantry Division and Iraqi Republican Guard troops. There was some confusion over the number of soldiers on board. Pentagon officials said there were 11; seven of whom were killed. Four were injured and rescued, it said.
But an initial report from Central Command in Qatar said there were only six soldiers on board and that casualties had not been confirmed. It said the helicopter crashed in central Iraq at approximately 2145 BST yesterday, while on an operational mission.
Meanwhile, two planeloads of injured British service personnel were today flying into Edinburgh airport.
Bush to meet lost soldiers’ families
The US president, George Bush, was visiting the largest US marine base today for his first meetings with family members of troops killed in the Iraq war.
At Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Bush is to have private meetings with relatives of some of the 13 known war dead who were based at the camp. He also is due to address troops on the campaign’s progress.
”The president will talk about the progress being made in the war, and he continues to be pleased with the progress that is being made,” White House representative Ari Fleischer told reporters yesterday.
”But as was pointed out at the Pentagon today, difficult days, difficult times very well may lie ahead,” he said.
This will be Mr Bush’s third trip out of the Washington area since the war began on March 19. His previous trips were to Philadelphia on Monday and to the US military Central Command headquarters in Florida last week.
US casualties rise to 51
The US military reported today that a US marine was killed in Nassiriya when his machine gun got caught in power lines. The incident occurred on Monday, and the marine has not yet been named.
The news of the marine’s death brings the official number of US casualties in the war to 51. This figure does not include the seven reported deaths in today’s downing of a Black Hawk helicopter.
Of the 50 dead service members identified thus far, 40 died in combat, and 10 died in non-combat accidents, US officials said.
Sixteen US soldiers are believed to be missing in action, with seven others being held as prisoners of war.
Iraq expels al-Jazeera reporter
The Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera said today that is withdrawing all its correspondents from Baghdad, Basra and Mosul after Iraqi officials expelled one of its reporters and barred another from reporting.
The station interrupted a regular newscast to announce that Iraq’s information ministry had ruled that its correspondent Diar al-Omari, an Iraqi, could no longer report for the network and that a visiting correspondent, Tayseer Allouni, had been told to leave the country.
Al-Jazeera said the ministry did not give a reason for the action, which it called ”sudden and unjustified”. Iraqi officials have taken similar actions against several western networks, including CNN.
The announcement completed a bad day for the broadcaster, after a hotel housing its correspondents was shelled by coalition forces.
Nato meet to discuss post-conflict Iraq
Plans for the post-war reconstruction of Iraq were being discussed at a high-level Nato meeting in Brussels today, which will see pro- and anti-war countries sitting around the same table.
The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, was expected to come under pressure from European Union and Nato foreign ministers, including the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, to allow the UN to have a major role in running a post-Saddam administration. – Guardian Unlimited Â