Battles flare in Baghdad outskirts

Iraq's capital city is now a patchwork of looting and cheering Iraqis, as well as continued fierce fighting.

Heavy explosions and small arms fire echoed across the city late into Thursday afternoon as troops from the 1st Marine Division battled Iraqis and non-Iraqi paramilitaries in pitched battles for control of major thoroughfares.

Though Army and Marine units have secured the center of Baghdad, the continued fighting in various neighborhoods of the city suggests that hundreds, if not thousands, of the regime's supporters have gone to ground in disparate enclaves and are attempting to resist US occupation here.

One US marine was killed and 20 wounded in a northern neighborhood of the city in a battle around the Iman al Adham Mosque, where senior Iraqi officials were reportedly holed up.

"We had information that a group of the regime leadership was attempting to organize ... a meeting," said Capt. Frank Thorp, a spokesman at the US Central Command in Qatar.

The US is battling not just Iraqis but Arab volunteer fighters from around the Middle East whose motivation may have less to do with supporting Saddam Hussein than Muslim or Arab brotherhood (see story). There were reports of Arab fighters manning checkpoints and patrolling the streets in the north and western neighborhoods of the city.

With full control of the air, and a growing US presence, American fighters have advantage over their foes and are launching fresh attacks and continue to secure neighborhoods. In Qatar, a senior US general said that US forces had completed a cordon around Baghdad to block the arrival of Iraqi reinforcements and to prevent any escape attempt by senior Iraqi officials.

American marines arriving in Baghdad from their southern bases, report being fired upon. Iraqi snipers have sought tall buildings to fire down on approaching US convoys, though with little success, since their positions are soon discovered and eliminated.

In Saddam City, American demolition teams were busy Thursday destroying abandoned tanks and heavy armor that escaped the fighting. The banks of both the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are now littered with dead Iraqi soldiers.

In the predominantly Shiite suburbs of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein's face is conspicuously absent in contrast to other Sunni enclaves where the elusive dictator's visage still beams defiantly from the sides of the road.

This reporter moved through the southern part of Baghdad with a US military munitions convoy early Thursday, and witnessed scenes of Iraqis celebrating and mass looting.

Page: 1 | 2