Skip to main content
Analysis: The forces around Baghdad

By Gary Eason
BBC News Online



The US 3rd Infantry Division is closing in on Baghdad
As US forces close on Baghdad there are signs that the defending Iraqi units have fragmented - or been re-deployed.
The big mystery

On Thursday, the US 3rd Infantry Division was said to have closed to within a few miles of the Iraqi capital, pushing up from the south-west.


Surprise has been expressed at the lack of opposition met by US troops

But reporters with it say it has not been encountering any sizeable resistance.

"The numbers against the Americans were not that significant," said the BBC's Gavin Hewitt.

The Iraqis did seem to have been surprised by the speed of the US advance, he added - but he thought it premature to say that the Republican Guard divisions expected to defend the capital had been overcome.

He had not seen large numbers of destroyed vehicles or prisoners.

BBC correspondent Rageh Omaar, in Baghdad, said the surprise there was that it still seemed to be an open city - with no checkpoints, troops or tanks on the main arterial routes.

Moving around the city he said the picture was of many different forces - regular army, paramilitaries and militias in small units all over the place, but no armour.

"It does not have the appearance at all of a militarised city.

"Something for me just simply does not add up," he said.

"Where are the defenders? Nobody knows."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Could Narcolepsy be caused by gluten? :: Kitchen Table Hypothesis

Kitchen Table Hypothesis from www.zombieinstitute.net - Heidi's new site It's commonly known that a severe allergy to peanuts can cause death within minutes. What if there were an allergy that were delayed for hours and caused people to fall asleep instead? That is what I believe is happening in people with Narcolepsy. Celiac disease is an allergy to gliadin, a specific gluten protein found in grains such as wheat, barley and rye. In celiac disease the IgA antigliadin antibody is produced after ingestion of gluten. It attacks the gluten, but also mistakenly binds to and creates an immune reaction in the cells of the small intestine causing severe damage. There is another form of gluten intolerance, Dermatitis Herpetiformis, in which the IgA antigliadin bind to proteins in the skin, causing blisters, itching and pain. This can occur without any signs of intestinal damage. Non-celiac gluten sensitivity is a similar autoimmune reaction to gliadin, however it usually involves the...
19 comments
Read more

Insulin Resistance- cause of ADD, diabetes, narcolepsy, etc etc

Insulin Resistance Insulin Resistance Have you been diagnosed with clinical depression? Heart disease? Type II, or adult, diabetes? Narcolepsy? Are you, or do you think you might be, an alcoholic? Do you gain weight around your middle in spite of faithfully dieting? Are you unable to lose weight? Does your child have ADHD? If you have any one of these symptoms, I wrote this article for you. Believe it or not, the same thing can cause all of the above symptoms. I am not a medical professional. I am not a nutritionist. The conclusions I have drawn from my own experience and observations are not rocket science. A diagnosis of clinical depression is as ordinary as the common cold today. Prescriptions for Prozac, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, etc., are written every day. Genuine clinical depression is a very serious condition caused by serotonin levels in the brain. I am not certain, however, that every diagnosis of depression is the real thing. My guess is that about 10 percent of the people taking ...
5 comments
Read more

BBC NEWS | Technology | The ethical dilemmas of robotics

BBC NEWS | Technology | The ethical dilemmas of robotics If robots can feel pain, should they be granted certain rights? If robots develop emotions, as some experts think they will, should they be allowed to marry humans? Should they be allowed to own property? These questions might sound far-fetched, but debates over animal rights would have seemed equally far-fetched to many people just a few decades ago. Now, however, such questions are part of mainstream public debate. And the technology is progressing so fast that it is probably wise to start addressing the issues now. One area of robotics that raises some difficult ethical questions, and which is already developing rapidly, is the field of emotional robotics. More pressing moral questions are already being raised by the increasing use of robots in the military This is the attempt to endow robots with the ability to recognise human expressions of emotion, and to engage in behaviour that humans readily perceive as emotional. Huma...
Post a Comment
Read more