KUWAIT CITY, 10 April 2003 — US marines have wrapped up fighting in Baghdad’s eastern zone yesterday though Iraqi snipers are still posing problems, a US military official said. “Pretty much everything is wrapped up in the eastern zone,” Lt. Col. Jim Parrington told an AFP correspondent on the ground. “We’re still seeing some snipers around a lot. They are well hidden, well-armed and very good marksmen,” said Parrington, of Regimental Combat Team 1 with the First Marine Expeditionary Force. “There’s going to be a lot of that going on even if this thing wraps up in the short term.”
If US troops appear close to capturing Baghdad, significant portions of Iraq’s Republican Guard and other forces are still at large, raising fears of lingering guerrilla warfare, officers say.
As their bid to topple Saddam Hussein entered its fourth week, US-led forces were firmly installed in his capital and expanding their control daily, with the Iraqis offering little more than sporadic resistance.
But US officers remained concerned over the disappearance of sizeable numbers of the elite Republican Guard, as well as regular army troops and hard-line militia who appear to have simply melted away.
“I think that there are still some options available to whatever portion of the regime remains,” Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, deputy director of operations for the US Central Command, said yesterday.
US intelligence officers estimate that most of the once 60,000-strong Republican Guard have been decimated but at least three brigades, roughly 7,500 men, remain a fighting force.
There has been no word on the extent of losses among the estimated 18,000-20,000 Fedayeen, an elite militia force considered ultra-loyal to Saddam and headed by his elder son Uday.
Nor is there an overall figure on how many of Iraq’s approximately 2,000 tanks, including about 700 relatively modern T-72s, had survived airstrikes and a series of ground clashes in the last week.
Brooks said US ground forces had been running up against Iraqi formations comprising between 20 and 60 vehicles, all of which were usually wiped out. But there have been no reports of any major tank battles.
US officials are bracing for continued resistance in Baghdad as well as Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown and a bastion of support 200 kilometers to the north of the capital.
They say Iraq’s overall command structure has been shattered, but local forces could hit at US and British troops with artillery and rocket fire, ambushes, snipers and car bombs.
Group Capt. Al Lockwood, a British military spokesman, said the once 15,000-strong Special Republican Guard charged with protecting Saddam were entrenched in Baghdad and “it’s going to take some time to work on them”.
“There’s no command and control from the leadership. We’ve destroyed that. So they’re very much acting on their own,” Lockwood said. “They are very much reduced to light weapons, anti-tank weapons.”
Fears persist that the Iraqis will prolong the war with hit-and-run tactics, bombings and suicide attacks after the Americans declare victory in Baghdad and begin to set up new political structures.
“There will be a lunatic fringe,” said Lockwood. “They’ll continue to fight. It won’t be coherent. There’ll be opportunity attacks and we’ll have to deal with them as we go along.”
Lt. Col. Fred Padilla, commander of the Marines’ 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment, agreed that some “diehard cases” will likely go on fighting after Saddam has been overthrown.
Maj. Stephen Armes, his operations officer, said volunteers coming from the Palestinian territories and countries such as Egypt, Sudan, Syria and Jordan were unlikely to throw in the towel easily. “They will lay low for a while and then start trying to hit us again,” Armes said.
