Ground Battles, Air Strikes Around Baghdad Intensify

U.S. ground troops engaged in several battles, including a fierce contest for Hindiyah, a town some 50 miles from the Iraqi capital.

A heavy round of artillery fire was reported around Baghdad’s southern fringes as U.S. ground units apparently employed skirmish tactics intended to draw Iraqi Republican Guard units out of their positions around the city.

Low flying war planes and missiles continued to pound positions in and around Baghdad, with some missiles reportedly hitting the palace of Saddam Hussien’s son Qusay.

“The artillery fire is suddenly very intense. We can hear it coming from the south. It’s unusual,” Reuters correspondent Samia Nakhoul reported.

Monday’s air strike targets included part of Baghdad’s Information Ministry and at least two telephone centers.

U.S. and Iraqi ground forces clashed when members of the U.S. Army’s Third Infantry Division battled their way into Hindiyah, a town some 50 miles from Baghdad that contains a key Euphrates River crossing. According to reports from the region, U.S. troops encountered Iraqis firing from buildings and foxholes dug in along a road.

U.S. troops engaged in street-to-street fighting in the town while searching for Iraqi militia in some of the most intense land battles reported thus far in the war.

U.S. forces captured dozens of fighters who identified themselves as part of Iraq’s elite Republican Guard encamped in the town and at least 35 Iraqi fighters were killed.

“This must have been important to him (Saddam) to send down one of his Republican Guard brigades,” U.S. brigade commander Col. David Perkins told an Associated Press reporter.

During Monday’s U.S. Central Command press briefing, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks confirmed that U.S. troops had engaged the Republican Guard units south of Baghdad.

A stockpile of thousands of rounds of small arms and other ammunitions was uncovered by U.S. troops in a building in Hindiyah that served as a headquarters for Saddam’s Ba’ath Party.

Battles were also reported at Imam Aiyub on the eastern side of the Euphrates as well as the south central town of Najaf, some 70 miles from Baghdad.

“There’s still extremely heavy contact right now,” Captain Brad Loudon of the Second Battalion 70th Armored Regiment near Imam Aiyub, told Reuters.

According to U.S reports, some 100 Iraqi fighters were killed in the fighting around Najaf and another 50 were captured.

In southern Iraq, sporadic fighting continued around the southern city of Nasiriya, which also contains key Euphrates River crossings. On Sunday, U.S. Marines captured buildings that had been held by an Iraqi infantry division and contained stockpiles of weapons and chemical decontamination equipment.

An estimated 5,000 reinforcement troops are being sent to Nasiriya to support U.S. Marines already positioned around the city who have encountered stiff Iraqi resistance, the BBC reports. The southern city is considered a critical link in the supply chain that supports troops on the frontline near Baghdad

In Basra, British forces continued to battle with Iraqi militia, destroying a bunker and several tanks during an assault on Sunday. One British Royal Marine was killed in the fighting.

U.S. Central Command said that the local population in Basra was providing information on the fighters still loyal to Saddam in the city, but there were still areas “under the boot of the Iraqi regime.”

“We wouldn’t say that Basra is completely under coalition control,” Brig. Gen. Brooks said during Monday’s press briefing.