- KIFL, Iraq (Reuters) - When
U.S. tanks rumbled into this town on the Euphrates river, irregular Iraqi
forces set up sniper nests up and down the main street, opening fire from
doors, windows, market stalls and patches of open ground.
-
- A crimson sunset painted the street red and visibility
fell to less than 15 feet as a swirling sand and dust storm kicked up when
the guerrilla units attacked.
-
- U.S. officers said fighters in minivans, pick-up trucks
and cars drove straight at the oncoming tanks. Others took to canoes, rowing
down the river and trying to fix explosives to the main bridge.
-
- But the guerrilla-style forces were vastly outgunned
by the tanks of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division, and hundreds of
Iraqis have died in this town over the last four days.
-
- The officers said the tank unit fired two 120 mm high
velocity depleted uranium rounds straight down the main road, creating
a powerful vacuum that literally sucked guerrillas out from their hideaways
into the street, where they were shot down by small arms fire or run over
by the tanks.
-
- "It was mad chaos like you cannot imagine,"
said the tank unit's commander, who identified himself as "Cobra 6"
as he did not want friends and neighbors back home to know what he had
been through.
-
- "We took a lot of fire, and we gave a lot of fire,"
he said.
-
- "You couldn't see anything except all those hues
of red and the sound of fire from all sides. It was not earthly. I'll have
nightmares about it."
-
- Dozens of bodies still littered the streets on Saturday.
-
- Some were wrapped in blue and black body bags, but others
were still out in the open, rotting in the midday sun. Several spilled
out of their charred and shattered cars and trucks, burned beyond recognition.
-
- HIGH COST
-
- Iraq's efforts to stall the U.S. military advance toward
Baghdad appear to include putting elite officers in with irregular paramilitary
or guerrilla structures at strategic points.
-
- In Kifl, which lies north of Najaf and about 81 miles
south of Baghdad, the strategy may have slowed the U.S. forces, but only
at an extremely high cost.
-
- Some U.S. soldiers estimate that at least 1,000 Iraqis
were killed here since the fighting began at dusk on Wednesday, and everyone
puts the number in the hundreds.
-
- Officers say just one U.S. soldier has died.
-
- Sporadic mortar fire and bursts of sniper fire kept U.S.
troops alert in the town late on Saturday, but officers said most of the
resistance in the town had been overcome.
-
- The main danger was now posed by an artillery unit about
10 miles to the north.
-
- "I'm sure there are still some knuckleheads in the
town, but the real problem is what's outside," said Colonel Joseph
Anderson of the 101st Airborne Division, which moved in to help secure
Kifl on Saturday.
-
- Wave after wave of Iraqi soldiers and paramilitaries
had set up mortar positions at an old brick factory on the edge of town,
getting dropped off from civilian vehicles at a large tree that U.S. forces
here now call the "Gateway to Hell."
-
- U.S. officers said they had destroyed up to 50 vehicles
making drop-offs there, adding the brick factory, like much of Kifl, was
now virtually abandoned.
-
- The canoes lie empty on the river beds and only U.S.
soldiers walk up and down the town's main streets.
-
- Some families were still seen in their homes on the edge
of town on Saturday, tending to sheep and goats as U.S. tanks and trucks
rolled by with nervous soldiers looking out over the fields, their guns
loaded for any new guerrilla threat.
-
- While the guerrilla tactics appeared to have failed in
Kifl, the Iraqis claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb which killed
at least four U.S. soldiers on Saturday at a military checkpoint near Najaf.
|
