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Third infantry fiercest fighting { March 26 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/26/international/worldspecial/26CND-INFA.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/26/international/worldspecial/26CND-INFA.html
March 26, 2003
3rd Infantry Seizes 3 Bridges in Fiercest Fighting So Far
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
WITH THE THIRD INFANTRY DIVISION, in Central Iraq, March 26 — The Army's Third Infantry Division encircled the city of Najaf early today after seizing three bridges across the Euphrates River in the division's fiercest clashes since the war began.
The fight around Najaf — which lasted more than 36 hours — has considerably slowed the division's march northwards, as have the swirling winds and sand. The storm continued relentlessly today, reducing visibility to a few hundred feet and casting an eerie burnt orange glow as the sun set.
Najaf, a city of more than 100,000 about 90 miles from Baghdad, had not been one of the division's military objectives, and commanders here said they did not intend to occupy it. But they were forced to encircle it as Iraqi forces repeatedly attacked American forces after they pushed across the escarpment to the west on Sunday.
"What I've done is surround the city and cut it off," the division's commander, Maj. Gen. Buford C. Blount 3rd, said in an interview today.
The Iraqi commander inside the city telephoned his superiors in Baghdad early today to say that he was surrounded, another American officer here said, but as many as 1,000 fighters, believed to belong to militia groups intensely loyal to Saddam Hussein, remained inside and continued to clash with United States Army soldiers arrayed around the town.
This morning and again this evening, the division's artillery batteries repeatedly struck Iraqi troops — some in tanks, most in troop transports — who tried to reinforce the city from the north and the south. Maj. Benjamin M. Matthews, artillery commander for the division's 1st Brigade, said the barrages, backed by air strikes, had destroyed more than two dozen Iraqi vehicles and killed scores of troops.
Iraq's military appears to have decided to make a stand at Najaf, though the forces fighting there are mostly militia fighters from Mr. Hussein's Baath Party and two other groups, Saddam Fedayeen and Al Quds.
General Blount said that he was surprised by the intensity of the Iraqi resistance — something that has forced changes in the Army's plans to press quickly towards the defenses of Baghdad, where Iraq's elite Republican Guard divisions are dug in.
The general added that it appeared, for now at least, that Mr. Hussein's government still maintained some control over its military.
"They're fighting fairly tenaciously," General Blount said. "They're organized, and some of them are fairly well equipped."
One soldier with the 3rd Infantry Division, a loader on a tank, was killed on Monday. Also two tanks and one Bradley fighting vehicle with the division's 3rd Regiment, 7th Cavalry Squadron were destroyed by anti-armored missiles. Officers here believe the missile may be a new Russian variant, known as a Cornet, purchased despite United Nations sanctions on arms sales to Iraq.
According to the division's estimates, as many as 1,000 Iraqi troops have been killed since the division swept into the scrub desert north of Najaf, essentially passing the city by. Hundreds more have been captured.
The situation inside Najaf itself — one of the holiest sites in the Shiite branch of Islam because it is the burial site of Ali, the cousin of the prophet Mohammed — remained unclear. Its population is predominantly Shiite, but the security and military forces loyal to Mr. Hussein still control it. Col. William F. Grimsley, commander of the 1st Brigade, described the city as "at least neutral and perhaps happy we're here."
General Blount said that American forces had been in contact with Shiite leaders and expected them to assume control once those loyal to Mr. Hussein, now cut off, surrender.
The battle around the city, the division's most intense in six says of fighting, began late Monday night when the 1st Brigade sent a tank company across a bridge north of the city, with the intent of blocking the main roads into it from the north. It was the first time the division's troops had crossed the Euphrates.
After three tanks passed, the Iraqis detonated explosives, buckling the bridge and cutting off the tanks. Engineers eventually made the bridge passable again, but fighting flared through the day on Tuesday.
The 3rd Regiment, 7th Cavalry, moving north from Samawah, captured a bridge south of the city late Tuesday, while the 1st Brigade seized another bridge north early today, effectively completing the encirclement.
The effort has distracted significant parts of the division, which had been consolidating its forces for what is expected to be a final assault on the Republican Guard divisions around Baghdad.
Despite the American foothold on the eastern side of the Euphrates, Iraqi forces continued to attack in what soldiers described as futile, almost fanatical assaults against M1-A1 tanks and Bradley armored fighting vehicles.
Cpl. Benjamin R. Richardson, who was among the engineers who went to the bridge, said he saw two civilian vehicles with armed Iraqis drive straight toward Americans. A tank drove simply over one of the vehicles without firing a shot, while a Bradley raked the other vehicle with gunfire.
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