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Baghdad fall days away Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035780543225&call_pageid=1045739058633&col=1045739057805http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035780543225&call_pageid=1045739058633&col=1045739057805
Apr. 7, 2003. 05:42 AM
Fall of Baghdad 'Just Days Away'
U.S. tanks smash into presidential palace complex
JOHN DANISZEWSKI AND TONY PERRY
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
BAGHDAD — U.S. Marines nearly 25,000 strong linked up with thousands of Army infantry soldiers and isolated this faltering capital yesterday, as U.S. military intelligence said the collapse of President Saddam Hussein's regime is only days away.
"No bad guys are coming (out)," Marine Capt. Joe Plenzler said. "No bad guys are going in.''
Intelligence reports said a number of high-level officials from Saddam's Baath party were trying to flee the city. The reports said Saddam's ability to control Baghdad was slipping.
"Regime collapse is a matter of days, not weeks," one report concluded.
Two U.S. tanks smashed into a presidential palace compound in central Baghdad today, witnesses said.
"Two tanks are in the presidential compound," a Reuters correspondent said from a vantage point about 500 metres away from a main palace of President Saddam Hussein. "They are right in the heart of the city."
Shortly before dawn today, a series of heavy explosions shook downtown buildings, echoing from the southern outskirts of the capital.
Intermittent explosions were heard throughout the night, along with periodic anti-aircraft fire. As the capital shook from continued allied bombing, Iraqi state television broadcast a statement attributed to Saddam, urging soldiers who had been separated from regular units to join up with any unit they could locate.
The statement also said that anyone who destroys an allied tank, armoured personnel carrier or artillery would be awarded about $12,000.
After night fell, two C-130 Hercules transport aircraft landed at Baghdad's international airport, demonstrating that the allies were now ready to put the recently captured tarmac to their own use.
Around Baghdad, elements of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, including Cyclone Company of the 4th Battalion, 64th Armour Regiment, were in action yesterday. As the unit moved north toward Baghdad, it destroyed 12 Iraqi tanks within the distance of about 6 kilometres.
Farther east, nearly the entire 1st Marine Division was massing at a string of encampments across the Tigris River from Baghdad, less than 8 kilometres from the Iraqi capital.
Despite his government's losses, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Said Sahaf insisted at a news conference that Saddam's government would triumph. "Republican Guards are still tightening the noose around the U.S. enemy in the area surrounding the airport," he said. "We destroyed six tanks and damaged 10 others and killed 50 of the enemy forces."
U.S. military sources said as many as 3,000 Iraqis were killed during Saturday's firefight, part of a major U.S. probe into Baghdad. "We have not seen any examples of organized combat action,'' said Brig-Gen. Vincent Brooks, deputy director of operations at Central Command.
He said counterattacks in and around the capital and at the airport consisted of "small pockets" of company-sized units rarely exceeding 20 to 40 vehicles. They were manned by paramilitary groups and Baath arty members.
The intense fighting took a growing toll on combatants and civilians, however. Russian diplomats and a convoy of America's Kurdish comrades-in-arms were among unintended victims caught in crossfire and friendly fire.
Other prizes fell into coalition hands yesterday. Southeast of Baghdad, U.S. Marines seized one of Saddam's palaces, poked through remnants of a Republican Guard headquarters and searched a suspected terrorist training camp.
On another vital front, British troops thrust deep into Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, with a sense they are finally shaking loose Saddam loyalists who have hung on for more than two weeks. By nightfall, the British had set up checkpoints inside Basra for the first time.
Military officials said the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, elements of the famed Black Watch Regiment, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and the Royal Marine Commandos faced only token opposition.
In Karbala, southwest of Baghdad, soldiers from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division used a combination of air strikes, artillery and small-arms fire to flush out hundreds of paramilitary fighters who have targeted American supply columns heading north.
In a surprise move, the United States has begun airlifting hundreds of members of an Iraqi exile group into southern Iraq. Taking up camp on the outskirts of Nasiriya, the soldiers belong to the Iraqi National Congress. Their leader, Ahmed Chalabi, a former London-based banker, was among those flown in.
The force is to perform a variety of missions, from delivering humanitarian aid to hunting down Saddam's supporters.
"The war of national liberation which Iraqis have waged for 30 years is now nearing its end," Chalabi was quoted as saying. "We call on the Iraqi people to join with us in removing the final remnants of Saddam's Baathist regime.''
In other developments:
A broadcaster for Iraqi state radio read a decree by Saddam that two women who died Thursday in a suicide bombing that killed three U.S. soldiers be posthumously decorated and their families given the equivalent of $41,000 Cdn apiece.
Coalition forces sifted yesterday through the rubble of the Basra home of Ali Hassan al-Majid, the Iraqi general known as Chemical Ali for ordering a poison gas attack against Kurds in 1988. Allied officials said the general was believed to have been home when it was attacked Saturday. NBC News correspondent David Bloom, 39, died yesterday from an apparent blood clot. The network said he was about 40 kilometres south of Baghdad and packing gear when he suddenly collapsed. He never regained consciousness.
A warehouse in Zubayr full of hundreds of bodies appears to have been a repatriation facility for soldiers killed during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, military investigators said yesterday.
British troops discovered two tin sheds full of bodies and coffins Saturday on Zubayr's northern outskirts.
Members of Ansar al Islam, the extremist Muslim group pushed from its northern Iraq enclave by U.S. and Kurdish forces a week ago, have begun surrendering from the Iranian border.
At least a dozen fighters surrendered yesterday.
Los Angeles Times, the Star's Wire Services
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