The Hindu : Iraqis fight back as Baghdad burns

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 09, 2003

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Iraqis fight back as Baghdad burns

Explosions rock the Iraqi Planning Ministry in Baghdad on Tuesday, in U.S. air strikes. — Reuters

BAGHDAD April 8. Iraqi forces staged a major counterattack today, sending buses and trucks full of fighters across the Tigris river in an attempt to overrun U.S. troops holding a strategic intersection on Baghdad's western side.

At a summit in Hillsborough, Northern Ireland, the U.S. President, George W. Bush, and the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, endorsed a "vital role" for the United Nations in Iraq and called for world unity over the country when fighting ended.

Explosions, the thud of shells landing, anti-aircraft and machine-gun fire and the drone of aircraft filled the midday air in Baghdad today. At least 50 Iraqi fighters were killed, said Philip Wolford, a company commander with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division. Two U.S. soldiers were reported wounded, one seriously, by snipers on rooftops.

U.S. Marines and Iraqi paramilitary fighters were locked in fierce combat as U.S. forces took control of a military airport, destroying Iraqi tanks and armoured personnel carriers. The Rashid airport is in a "militarily significant" area between the Diala and Tigris rivers in southeastern Baghdad, U.S. military officials said. Taking the airfield would help the U.S. secure the Iraqi capital and keep high-ranking Iraqi officials from escaping.

An A-10 tank-killing warplane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile during the fighting. The pilot ejected safely and was rescued by U.S. ground forces near the airport.

American military officials said it was unknown whether the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, had been killed in a U.S. attack on a restaurant where he was believed to be meeting with his sons.

An Iraqi woman screams upon arriving with her injured husband and son at a hospital in Baghdad on Tuesday. — AP

In southern Iraq, British soldiers began distributing water to battle-weary residents of Basra but were unable to quell looting that erupted when the soldiers moved into the city a day earlier.

The Iraqi counterattack began shortly after dawn, when more than 20 buses and trucks dropped off dozens of Iraqi foot soldiers firing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at U.S. tanks blocking an intersection leading to a bridge over the Tigris.

Two A-10s targeted the building tops and the street with 30mm cannon fire, and British Tornado fighter jets dropped precision-guided bombs. About an hour after the fire-fight began, Capt. Wolford moved his tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles forward again and retook the intersection.

Iraqi fighters also appeared to be probing U.S. defences in other areas, with short exchanges of fire. American troops showed no signs of pulling back. U.S. forces are also fighting north of Baghdad, with units of the Army's V Corps, and small pockets of resistance elsewhere in the capital and east of Karbala.

One day after a U.S. B-1 bomber blasted a smoking, 18-meter crater at a Baghdad restaurant, U.S. officials said it was unclear whether Mr. Hussein had survived the attack. "We believe the strike was effective in hitting the target, creating the desired effect, but we don't know all the circumstances of what happened to those who were contained inside," said Vincent Brooks at the U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar. The attack also destroyed or damaged nearly two dozen houses.

The Iraqi Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, speaking to reporters on Tuesday made no mention of Mr. Hussein's fate, and rejected any suggestion that Iraq would surrender to the American forces drawing a noose around the regime.

For the first time since the war began, residents of the capital could see, rather than just hear, allied aircraft. A lone fighter jet flew over Baghdad, swerving, diving and, at times, causing a boom that rocked the city. Most residents were hunkered down in their homes and there was little traffic on the streets.

London and Washington hope their agreed vision of the post-war stages in Iraq will placate anti-war nations such as France, Germany and Russia, and appease widespread international suspicion of U.S. motives in Iraq. "We are of course agreed, as we say in our joint statement, that there will be a vital role for the U.N. in the reconstruction of Iraq," Mr. Blair told a news conference at his summit meeting with Mr. Bush.

"We will move as quickly as possible to place governmental responsibilities under the control of an interim authority composed of Iraqis from both inside and outside the country," said Mr. Bush at a news conference at Hillsborough Castle. "The interim authority will serve until a permanent government can be chosen by the Iraqi people. Rebuilding of Iraq will require the support and expertise of the international community. We are committed to working with international institutions, including the U.N., which will have a vital role to play in this task." But when pressed on what precisely the U.N. role would be, Mr. Bush mentioned only humanitarian work and "suggesting" people for the interim authority.

AP, Reuters, AFP

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