Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | To the south of the city, battle lines are drawn for the final showdown
Civilians at risk as Saddam waits to lure US into street fighting
Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday April 2, 2003
The Guardian
In the Pentagon, they are calling it the battle of Kerbala gap, after the 19-mile stretch of dry land between Razzaza lake and the Euphrates river. For the headline writers, however, it may become better known, from the ancient ruins on the river's east bank, as the Battle of Babylon.
Iraq's military commanders appear to have thrown parts of five of their six Republican Guard divisions into defending the southern approaches to Baghdad, and the seat of Mesopotamian civilisation lies along the 50-mile ring around the capital, where the Iraqi guardsmen have been told to make a stand.
In the past 24 hours US mechanised and airborne forces probing the Iraqi defences have reported coming across corpses in uniforms of the Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar divisions, both named after ancient Babylonian kings in whose steps Saddam Hussein believes he is treading.
The Hammurabi has traditionally had the task of guarding Saddam's hometown of Tikrit; the Nebuchadnezzar are there to protect the eastern flank from Iranian invasion, while the south had been left to the Medina Division.
However, it now seems clear that the US is not going to mount a serious push from the north. The light forces in Kurdish-run areas are there to keep the Turks and Kurds apart and perhaps to secure the northern oilfields.
Furthermore, US bombing over the last few days has focused on the Medina and Baghdad divisions, dropping more than 1,500 precision-guided munitions on their tanks and armoured vehicles. The Pentagon claims that their capacity to fight has been cut by half.
The Iraqi response seems to be to fill in the gaps, bringing in soldiers from the Nebuchadnezzar and Hammurabi divisions, and also al-Nida armoured division also from the northern approaches to the capital. But to do that the Iraqi generals have had to bring their entrenched troops out into the open, presenting coalition pilots with easy targets.
Civilians at risk as Saddam waits to lure US into street fighting
Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday April 2, 2003
The Guardian
In the Pentagon, they are calling it the battle of Kerbala gap, after the 19-mile stretch of dry land between Razzaza lake and the Euphrates river. For the headline writers, however, it may become better known, from the ancient ruins on the river's east bank, as the Battle of Babylon.
Iraq's military commanders appear to have thrown parts of five of their six Republican Guard divisions into defending the southern approaches to Baghdad, and the seat of Mesopotamian civilisation lies along the 50-mile ring around the capital, where the Iraqi guardsmen have been told to make a stand.
In the past 24 hours US mechanised and airborne forces probing the Iraqi defences have reported coming across corpses in uniforms of the Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar divisions, both named after ancient Babylonian kings in whose steps Saddam Hussein believes he is treading.
The Hammurabi has traditionally had the task of guarding Saddam's hometown of Tikrit; the Nebuchadnezzar are there to protect the eastern flank from Iranian invasion, while the south had been left to the Medina Division.
However, it now seems clear that the US is not going to mount a serious push from the north. The light forces in Kurdish-run areas are there to keep the Turks and Kurds apart and perhaps to secure the northern oilfields.
Furthermore, US bombing over the last few days has focused on the Medina and Baghdad divisions, dropping more than 1,500 precision-guided munitions on their tanks and armoured vehicles. The Pentagon claims that their capacity to fight has been cut by half.
The Iraqi response seems to be to fill in the gaps, bringing in soldiers from the Nebuchadnezzar and Hammurabi divisions, and also al-Nida armoured division also from the northern approaches to the capital. But to do that the Iraqi generals have had to bring their entrenched troops out into the open, presenting coalition pilots with easy targets.
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