NASSIRIYAH, 26 March 2003 — US Marines finally forced their way across the Euphrates river yesterday after a fierce street battle in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriyah that opened up a new line of advance northward toward Baghdad.
Once out of the city, they passed blasted Iraqi buses and other vehicles, apparently hit by an air strike, and saw at least 30 charred corpses and 30 Iraqi men being held prisoner.
Two days after a first bid to cross the river and the nearby Saddam Canal was blocked by Iraqi irregulars, the US Marines laid down a 3.5-km corridor of armored vehicles and the convoy charged through the streets under cover of helicopter rockets and a barrage of artillery, tank and heavy machine-gun fire.
Once the trucks and other vulnerable vehicles were across, the tanks and other armor rolled out behind, leaving Iraqi fighters still operating in Nassiriyah, a dusty city of more than a quarter of a million, 375 km south of the capital.
US leaders “wanted us to come north, so we needed to get all off our stuff through, and this was the way to do it”, said Lew Craparotta, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Infantry regiment.
The Euphrates had been a major barrier on their route to Baghdad from Kuwait, 150 km to the south.
At least five Iraqis died during nearly three hours of intense fighting from first light in the city center, Craparotta said. One US Marine was slightly wounded from a bullet ricochet. Two of the dead Iraqi men, whose family said they were brothers in their 40s, lay on the floor in separate rooms of a house looking onto the main road. Outside, an old woman wept beside her wounded husband as US Marines tried to treat him.
Later, this correspondent counted about 20 corpses, some decapitated or with limbs strewn across the road, by a mangled bus by the roadside 20 km north of the city. At least 10 more corpses lay by another bus, two trucks and two cars.
US soldiers were leading away prisoners, some of them injured after an apparent US bombing raid, perhaps to block reinforcements. Some of the Iraqis were wearing the black clothes typical of Iraqi militias. No weapons were visible.
In Nassiriyah, Cobra helicopters blasted Iraqi positions with rockets, American tanks shattered low-rise brick homes with high-explosive shells from close range — sometimes as little as 100 meters. Bullets ripped through the flimsy walls.
The heavy rattle of 50mm machinegun fire from armored vehicles was almost constant as thousands of US troops forced their way through the city in the early morning light. A CNN correspondent near Nassiriyah said one US Marine was wounded by “friendly fire” in confused fighting overnight.
US-led forces who invaded on Thursday to oust President Saddam Hussein have largely skirted cities. But without going through Nassiriyah, the bridges could not be crossed.
An advance up the road toward Kut, on the Tigris river, could be a second prong in an attack on Baghdad, complementing US infantry west of the Euphrates, who have already probed to within 100 km of the capital. A CNN correspondent with the 7th Cavalry also crossed the Euphrates yesterday, apparently over a different bridge.
On Sunday, the US Marines had said they were in control of two bridges in Nassiriyah, one over the Euphrates river and one over the Saddam Canal, 3.5 km to the north of it.
But they had been unable to control the streets in between and suffered casualties on Sunday when Iraqi forces, including the Saddam Fedayeen, mounted a counter-attack.
Nassiriyah, built in a farming region, was the site of a 1915 battle in World War One when British forces took 500 casualties in seizing the town from the Ottoman Turks. About 500 defenders died in that battle nearly a century ago.
Meanwhile, British and US commanders said yesterday they had crushed resistance by Iraqi fighters in the southern port town of Umm Qasr, and it was now open to receive aid supplies badly needed by local people.
In Baghdad, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan dismissed claims that Umm Qasr, located on the border with Kuwait, had fallen to the US and British forces. “They hovered around the airport of Umm Qasr but have not entered it,” he told a news conference. “They have not even entered the first Iraqi town.”
