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Marines capture huge Iraqi ammunition depot
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Tuesday, April 1, 2003
AS SAYLIYA CAMP, Qatar (REUTERS) — U.S. Marines captured a huge ammunition depot in south-central Iraq that included 40 warehouses, U.S. Central Command said Tuesday.
The facility compared in size to the ammunition dump at Camp Pendleton in southern California, which is home to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said a Central Command statement from its war headquarters in Qatar.
The Marines, who suffered no injuries in the operation Sunday, found “scores of ammunition, rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and various other small arms,” the statement said.
It made no mention of chemical weapons, which U.S. military leaders say they have yet to find in Iraq.
The Iraq invasion was launched by the United States and Britain last month to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for supposedly holding stores of chemical weapons.
Central Command said it would take several days to destroy all the captured ammunition and weapons.
Two explosions hit the southern outskirts of Baghdad shortly after dawn Tuesday, ending a three-hour lull in the U.S.-led bombardment of the Iraqi capital, a Reuters witness said.
“Two big explosions rocked the city just now from the South,” Reuters correspondent Hassan Hafidh said. “Until now, it was quiet since 4 a.m. (8 p.m. EST Monday).”
U.S. and British planes have unleashed a concentrated bombardment on Baghdad over the past three days. U.S. troops intent on overthrowing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein say they have approached to within 50 miles of his capital.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said Monday that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein should make a war-ending “sacrifice” by stepping aside.
“Since he has … asked his people to sacrifice for the country … he should be the first to sacrifice for his country,” Prince Saud told ABC News in an interview.
“If his staying in power [is] the only thing that brings problems to his country, we expect that he would respond to a sacrifice for his country, as he requires any citizen there to … sacrifice for his country.”
He made the comments to correspondent Barbara Walters, who asked him whether the Iraqi leader had to be removed from power.
Prince Saud, whose country strongly opposes the war despite being a key U.S. ally, repeated earlier calls for a halt to the fighting to make room for more diplomacy.
“This war can only lead to strife, to bloodshed and to increased hatred and increased … anxieties in the region,” he said. “Perhaps this is a good time to stop, take a breath, and allow for diplomacy to work.”
The United States, he added, “has to do some reckoning internally for the advice that it has had.”
7 Iraqi civilians killed
BAGHDAD (REUTERS) — Explosions blasted through the Baghdad night into Tuesday in a sustained U.S.-British air assault on the city and against Republican Guard positions on its outskirts.
In the desert 100 miles to the south near the town of Najaf, seven Iraqi women and children huddled in a car died in a hail of U.S. bullets certain to fuel anti-American sentiment through the Arab world. Two were wounded.
Four of 13 women and children — the only occupants of the vehicle — were unharmed.
Iraq reported fierce fighting in and around the city of Nassiriya and said the elite Republican Guard was involved, along with regular army troops and Baath party militia.
A military spokesman on Iraqi television said Iraqi forces had inflicted heavy casualties. “The blood of the enemy is flowing profusely,” said the unidentified spokesman. “God bless your hands. Victory will be yours. God is by your side.”
The U.S.-led air strikes hit a sprawling compound on the banks of the River Tigris used by President Saddam Hussein and his son Qusay. Smoke could be seen billowing from the complex.
The raids followed attacks Monday that hit the Information Ministry and at least two telephone exchanges.
There were no reports of civilian casualties in Baghdad, home to five million people, from the latest attacks.
But at a checkpoint near the central Iraqi city of Najaf, U.S. troops opened fire on a car packed with 13 women and children after it failed to heed warning shots to halt.
“As a last resort, the soldiers fired into the passenger compartment of the vehicle. Inside the vehicle they found 13 women and children. Seven of the occupants were dead. Two were wounded. Four were unharmed,” a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command War headquarters in Qatar said Tuesday.
A Washington Post correspondent near the scene said 15 people were in the car and 10 of them were killed, including five children.
They were the first known Iraqi civilian deaths by U.S. gunfire since the war began March 20, although Iraq has said dozens of civilians in Baghdad have died in missile attacks.
The United States has said it cannot confirm its weapons were responsible for the deaths in the capital and has said it is investigating.
Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the soldiers who shot at the car “absolutely did the right thing” because the occupants of the car had been acting unusually and the soldiers thought their lives were threatened.
U.S. officers have said their troops are being especially careful in checking civilians since a suicide bomber approaching a checkpoint in the Najaf area last Saturday killed four U.S. soldiers when he detonated his vehicle.
In Baghdad around midnight, flames could be seen rising into the night from a blast that rocked the central Palestine Hotel.
“It is very frightening. There is a lot of panic. I can hear people shouting and screaming in the street below” the hotel, Reuters correspondent Samia Nakhoul said.
Anti-aircraft fire was heard just before the explosions. Earlier, U.S. or British warplanes had screamed low over the center of the city.
Another explosion came from the headquarters of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, headed by Saddam’s eldest son, Uday.
“It is on fire. It’s a huge fire,” Reuters correspondent Khaled Yacoub Oweis said.
The building stands next to the Martyrs’ Memorial, a stunning monument in blue marble of two half domes facing each other, built in memory of the thousands of Iraqi soldiers who died in the 1980-1988 war with Iran.
Early Tuesday, a Reuters correspondent said booms could be heard from the outskirts of the city every three to four minutes. Some shook buildings in the center of Baghdad, several miles away.
Washington presents its invasion as a war to liberate the country, oust Saddam and rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq denies having such weapons.
President Bush, speaking in Philadelphia, told Iraqis: “We are coming with a mighty force to end the rule of your oppressors … We will not stop, we will not relent until your country is free.”
There are now 100,000 U.S. and British troops inside Iraq.
However, Gen. Richard Myers, head of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there was no rush to storm Baghdad. “We’ll be patient,” he said in Washington.
The United States had hoped to avoid street fighting in Baghdad that could cause heavy military and civilian casualties, but that seems increasingly likely. One senior official of the U.S. Central Command said the military was ready to pay a “very high price” in terms of casualties to take the city.
“We’re prepared to pay a very high price because we are not going to do anything other than ensure that this regime goes away,” the official said. “If that means there will be a lot of casualties, then there will be a lot of casualties.”
The Pentagon said the United States had fired 700 Tomahawk cruise missiles and 8,000 precision-guided munitions at Iraqi targets since the war began, 3,000 in the past three days. It flew 1,000 air sorties in the past 24 hours alone.
Iraq has said nearly 600 Iraqi civilians have been killed and over 4,500 wounded. It has not listed military casualties.
U.S. Marines raided the town of Shatra north of the key city of Nassiriya Monday. Hundreds of Iraqis shouting “Welcome to Iraq” greeted them as they entered the town.
