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http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/special_packages/iraq/5461186.htmhttp://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/special_packages/iraq/5461186.htm
Posted on Sun, Mar. 23, 2003
Allied troops race toward Baghdad
Grenade attack kills 1, injures 13
PATRICK PETERSON, PETER SMOLOWITZ & MARTIN MERZER
Knight Ridder
IN SOUTHERN IRAQ - U.S. and British forces crossed the Euphrates River and by late Saturday had advanced halfway to Baghdad, a capital jolted by ferocious new airstrikes.
Outside Baghdad, Iraqis lighted oil-filled trenches around the capital in an attempt to shield the city with smoke from air raids. It didn't work. Baghdad was hit Saturday both day and night by missiles and bombs guided by systems that penetrate smoke and darkness.
U.S. commanders said they destroyed another of Saddam Hussein's palaces, this one west of Baghdad.
Grenades exploded at the 101st Airborne base in Kuwait early today, killing one and wounding 13 servicemen, and a U.S. soldier was detained as a suspect in the attack, the Army said.
Three others who sustained serious injuries were undergoing surgery, the military said.
The suspect, who was found hiding in a bunker, is assigned to the 101st, military officials said. The motive in the attack "most likely was resentment," said Max Blumenfeld, a U.S. Army spokesman. He did not identify the suspect.
The attacker threw three grenades into three tents, including the command tent, military officials said.
The 101st Airborne Division is based in Fort Campbell, Ky.
Near Camp New York, another encampment in Kuwait, a Patriot missile hit an incoming missile, a military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. There were no reports of injuries or where debris from the missile might have landed.
In the southern city of Basra, allied units faced artillery and machine gun fire. So rather than risk a bloody urban battlefield in a city of 2 million, they took what they needed -- an airport and a bridge -- and moved on, leaving British forces behind.
"This is about liberation, not occupation," Gen. Tommy Franks said.
He said he had no idea where Saddam was or whether he was alive. Franks said U.S. officials continue to conduct surrender negotiations with senior Iraqi officials from the military and government.
Iraq showed what it said was footage of Saddam and his second son, Qusai, at meetings Saturday with senior government ministers. "They expressed their satisfaction with the heroic stance of the armed forces," the report said. It was unclear when the footage was taped, however.
As action intensified throughout Iraq, the casualty list grew on all sides. An American and six British soldiers died when two British helicopters collided over the Persian Gulf.
The Pentagon identified the dead American as Navy Lt. Thomas Mullen Adams, 27, of La Mesa, Calif.
Four U.S. soldiers, reconnaissance scouts in central Iraq, were wounded in firefights. Their names were withheld.
In addition, an Australian journalist was killed in a suicide car bombing in northern Iraq. It was in apparent retaliation for a U.S. airstrike earlier Saturday on Kurdish militants who allegedly harbor al-Qaida terrorists in a remote corner of the region.
Three British journalists from the ITV network were missing and were believed killed in southern Iraq.
Iraqi officials said three people died and 200 were wounded in the ongoing bombardment of Baghdad. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it knew of one dead and 100 injured civilians. The number of dead and injured seemed certain to grow.
Outside Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, U.S. troops in tanks and Cobra attack helicopters captured the airport and a bridge after battling Iraqi soldiers armed with machine guns and artillery. But they did not enter the city of 1.3 million people because organized resistance there disintegrated, said British Col. Chris Vernon.
"Basra does not represent a military objective" because of the disappearance of Iraq's 51st Infantry Division, which melted away, Vernon said.
"Military commanders do not engage in urban areas if they don't have to," he said. "The objective is the capitulation of the Iraqi government."
The United States and its allies acknowledged that no weapons of mass destruction had been found during the first three days of war.
Franks said special operations troops had been assigned to seize control of some Iraqi sites believed to contain chemical or biological weapons, but they came up empty, though some captured Iraqis have provided new and useful information.
On the ground, many Iraqis welcomed U.S. and British troops as liberators, but this was not universal.
In the border town of Safwan, an angry mob demonstrated against U.S. airstrikes and a lack, so far, of humanitarian aid. "They are supposed to help us, not kill innocent people," one person said.
One pleasant surprise for allied forces: The expected flood of refugees has not materialized.
In the port city of Umm Qasr, U.S. and British troops struggled to suppress small groups of resistance fighters, sometimes dressed in civilian clothing and armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Coalition forces "are finding it difficult to distinguish between civilian and Iraqi soldiers," Vernon said. "There's been a bit of a fight."
He dismissed reports that large numbers of Iraqi soldiers had been captured and were being held as prisoners of war, though he and other allied officers confirmed that thousands of bedraggled Iraqi troops simply laid down their weapons and went home. Franks said about 1,500 Iraqi soldiers were in custody.
The military encountered other glitches, some serious. Iranian officials said as many as four missiles fired by coalition forces struck southwestern Iran, injuring several people and drawing strong protests from the Islamic republic. The Pentagon said it could not confirm the account, but it was possible that four missiles went astray.
Asked about conflicting reports of Turkish troop movements in or near northern Iraq, Franks said discussions were under way to find an "acceptable" role for such troops.
The Bush administration worries that Turkish incursions could spark fighting between Turkey and the Kurds, who crave autonomy and control northern Iraq.
After three weeks of waiting for Turkish permission to unload tanks and other equipment needed by the Army's 4th Infantry Division, the Pentagon abandoned plans to move heavy armored forces through Turkey to open a second front along the Turkish-Iraqi border.
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The Observer's Peter Smolowitz reported from allied headquarters in Qatar.
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