NAJAF/BAGHDAD, 11 April 2003 — Entering Baghdad by road from the south yesterday, Arab News came upon countless destroyed Iraqi tanks with charred bodies of Iraqi fighters still inside them, their body parts littering the roadside. Inside the capital, amid the anarchy that has clearly descended on the city, we saw a small demonstration being held. The dozens of Iraqis were chanting: “The people of Iraq did not lose this war. It was the political party, the Baath that lost it.”
There was looting on a massive scale, mostly concentrated on government buildings. The US Marines outside, passively observing events, said when asked by Arab News whether they should be intervening: “These guys are stealing stuff from government buildings. The government has been stealing from these people for the last 35 years. It’s about time they got their own back.”
Late afternoon, a human bomber detonated explosives at a US checkpoint, killing at least one US Marine and leaving many wounded, some seriously.
And in a four-hour battle with Saddam loyalists firing from the Imam Al-Adham Mosque on the east bank of the Tigris River, another Marine was killed and more than 20 were injured.
French journalists who witnessed the battles told Arab News that a number of Fedayeen opened fire on the Americans in the square below. They returned fire with tanks, shelling the mosque which was soon destroyed.
In another indication of the apparent near-anarchy that has descended on this city of five million people, a number of Portuguese journalists were attacked by a mob of armed Fedayeen, who beat them about the body and head with the butts of their rifles.
There is virtually no security here anymore, although US soldiers are everywhere. But there are clear signs that the Iraqi people are welcoming the US troops.
A car with Iraqi license plates being driven by a local was transporting boxes of water to each Marine checkpoint and army post. He personally handed them bottles of water. Also, the soldiers stationed around the Palestine Hotel all have flowers pinned to their battledress.
Until the human bombing in the area, people could still be seen going up to them to hand them flowers.
By nightfall, more aerial bombardments had begun. Fighter jets flew overhead, followed by explosions on the outskirts of the city. Machine-gun fire burst out periodically in the distance.
The streets were totally deserted after dark, except for a few people walking between the Palestine and Sheraton hotels who had armed guards. The US Marines appear to have imposed some kind of martial law, and a curfew. The buildings of five ministries were ablaze in the distance.
Earlier in the day in the southern city of Najaf, this correspondent happened on a crowd of Iraqis who had been at the Ali Mosque, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines, just half an hour earlier. They said that former Iraqi Gen. Nizar Al-Khazraji and Islamic scholar Abdul Majid Al-Khoei had both been executed by Iraqi residents of Najaf.
Another independent Iraqi witness to the incident who spoke to Arab News said that the two potential Iraqi leaders of the city, who were supported by the US, “were chopped into pieces with swords and knives inside the Ali Mosque by Iraqis who accused them of being American stooges.”
Another witness said that a US Special Forces soldier, who had been acting as their bodyguard, was also killed in the incident.
Al-Khoei’s death has since been confirmed by his family in London, as was the death of one of his aides.
However, there has been no confirmation of Al-Khazraji’s death.
