Newsday (New York) April 06, 2003
'The Environment Has Changed'
By Letta Tayler
On the outskirts of Baghdad - The eight Iraqi corpses littering the sand and brush by the side of the road yesterday morning were clad in three types of garb: Iraqi uniforms. Traditional robes. Black ninja-style outfits.
They were part of a lethal combination of Iraqi forces that attacked a Marine unit about 12 miles from the center of Baghdad Friday night, killing a captain and injuring six enlisted troops.
Joining a few hundred traditional Republican Guard units with tanks and armored personnel carriers were members of the Fedayeen militia loyal to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, as well as black-clad foreign Muslims intent on combating the Americans because they consider them infidels.
Military officials believe that working in tandem, the groups staged traditional warfare as well as guerrilla ambushes on Marines of the Regimental Combat Team 5 traveling along Route 6.
As they push forward, the Marines are helping to form a ring around the Iraqi capital. The unit is bracing for more such attacks as U.S. forces begin tightening that noose in the coming days.
"The environment has changed and the pattern of resistance is shifting," Capt. Myle Hammond, commander of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, Regimental Combat Team 5, told his platoon leaders yesterday. As the unit moves closer to Baghdad, he said, it will likely encounter "a higher concentration of Republican Guard, Fedayeen and Islamic Jihad forces working together."
As evidence of that, the unit received reports yesterday that up to 4,000 Republican Guards and a dozen tanks, possibly from the elite Al Nadar unit, were operating east of Baghdad. If those Iraqi forces wanted to get to Baghdad, they'd have to cross the Marines blocking their path. In addition, at least two other Iraqi forces - possibly militia or members of the Islamic Jihad - were believed to be operating on the western side of the Marines, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and mortar.
This comes after Hussein declared a few days ago that Islamic Jihad forces, including suicide bombers, would be coming in from other countries to help him fight the allied advance. Hammond could not estimate how many such forces are operating in and around Baghdad but said there were easily "hundreds." He said military officials believe they are coming from countries such as Syria, Egypt and Sudan.
The forces appeared to be targeting commanders' vehicles, Hammond said.
At one point during the Friday night attack, Hammond said, the militia forces destroyed one of the Marines' Abrams tanks - a vehicle considered virtually indestructible - by attacking it from rooftops, sewer holes and on foot with rocket-propelled grenades, including one which they shoved up the exhaust pipe. Fired from a distance, the grenades normally would barely dent an Abrams. No one died in the tank attack.
Yesterday, fearing further ambushes, Marines in the unit halted friendly exchanges with Iraqi civilians who had approached them the previous two days to swap cigarettes, a few phrases of English or Arabic, or offer dates and flat bread.
Iraqi tanks and armored personnel carriers littered the roadside near the eight corpses yesterday, indicating that the Iraqis had suffered more than the Marines in Friday night's fight.
Even as the Marines joked about an imminent victory and put posters on their vehicles reading "No Sleep Til Baghdad" (a takeoff on the song "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" by the rap group Beastie Boys) infantrymen dug deeper trenches last night in anticipation of mortar or artillery fire from the Iraqi forces.
Some took three hours to dig waist-deep fighting holes, striking their pick-axes and folding shovels under a brutal sun in charcoal-lined suits designed to protect them from a chemical attack.
"We're not taking any chances," said Lance Cpl. Jason Hash, 19, of Elkton, Md., as he sat in his yard-deep hole. "If the Republican Guard comes, we'll be ready for them."
A sign that Iraqi forces were still operating nearby came before dawn yesterday as sleeping Marines were awakened by more than 100 ear-shattering artillery rounds that their own forces lobbed to the north. The firefight continued intermittently throughout the day.
As the battle raged on, friendly fire continued to wreak its unintended wrath on the Marines of the Regimental Combat Team 5. A senior noncommissioned officer within the unit was killed by shrapnel Friday night as he peered out the command hatch of his assault vehicle. The culprit: An unintended explosion of U.S. ordnance, Marines believe.
GRAPHIC: 1) AP Photo - United States Marines Corpsman Joe Clairmont, left, of Jacksonville, Fla., leads a group of comrades carrying a wounded soldier to a casualty evacuation helicopter yesterday. 2) Newsday Photo / Letta A. Tayler - Lance Cpl. Jason Hash, 19, in his fighting hole yesterday. Newsday Chart / Gustavo Pabon - The Tank Buster A look at the A-10 Thunderbolt II, designed by the Air Force to support ground forces. The slow-moving Thunderbolt is nicknamed the "Warthog" for its snub-nosed design. It is prized for its ability to linger in combat areas and carry heavy weapons; SOURCES: Periscope military databases, The Great Book of Modern Warplanes, United States Air Force, www.globalsecurity.org, www.au.af.mil, staff reporting. (not in text database)
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
