Home >  Nation & World >  World News

Curious civilians line streets, wave and welcome American troops moving into key southern city

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

By Rick Atkinson, The Washington Post

NAJAF, Iraq -- U.S. Army troops seized the southern edge of this key Euphrates River city yesterday as Iraqi militia fighters appeared to retreat in the face of overwhelming American firepower.

Hundreds of curious civilians, many of them smiling and waving, lined the narrow, dusty streets while soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division pressed to within half a mile of the gilded dome of the tomb of Ali, a site venerated by Shiite Muslims as the burial site of the prophet Muhammed's son-in-law.

Shortly before 2 p.m. Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st, drove in an armed convoy up a rocky escarpment into Najaf, urged on by clapping Iraqis who gestured impatiently for the Americans to press deeper into the city center. An Army loudspeaker truck broadcast messages in Arabic, urging residents not to interfere with the military operation and blaming Fedayeen fighters loyal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for the intense fighting of the past week.

American flags flapped from the antennae on two Special Forces pickup trucks, as infantrymen shambled north block by block, cautiously securing intersections and peering through doorways. Young Iraqi men in long kaftans stood smoking or chatting, while boys wheeled about on bicycles or two-wheeled carts drawn by a donkeys.

Four women in black peered over the wall of a second-story terrace. A bearded man clutching his prayer beads peevishly scattered a group of youths who had pressed too close to an Army Humvee armed with a .50-caliber machine gun.

By the end of the day, Petraeus declared Najaf "very much contained." He noted that his troops -- who continue to be wary of snipers and suicide bombers -- have yet to occupy most neighborhoods in this city of a half million people 90 miles south of Baghdad, but added, "We seem to have broken the back of the resistance" in the city.

An officer at V Corps, which is directing the Army's drive toward Baghdad, said that when Najaf is taken, "that's huge, that's one big domino. ... The enemy fought real hard to retain it, and they lost."

Najaf is considered militarily important because it virtually straddles the Army's supply line stretching from Kuwait to Baghdad's southern approaches. Military planners have been baffled by the indifferent reception given the American invasion by Iraq's often-oppressed Shiite majority, and yesterday's welcome, if hardly tumultuous, was considered heartening.

After intense artillery, tank and air bombardment of suspected Fedayeen strongholds Sunday, the attack reached a climax early yesterday morning when Air Force planes dropped three 2,000-pound bombs on three buildings -- two just north of Ali's tomb and the other just south -- believed to be resistance strongholds. "It looked like sunrise coming up," an Air Force liaison officer said.

As the smoke cleared, hundreds of Iraqi civilians emerged from homes in the old city, waving white cloths and gesturing toward American troops below the escarpment, according to a Special Forces officer. At dawn, seven M-1 Abrams tanks, accompanied by AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, drove two kilometers into the city from Checkpoint Charlie, a road crossing on the southern perimeter. Intended as a demonstration of power, the so-called "thunder run" also was intended to topple or crush a statue of Saddam believed to be at a center city intersection. But last-minute intelligence indicated that the statue is at a different intersection, and the tanks pulled back without making contact.

Infantry battalions from the division's 1st Brigade then pressed into Najaf, first from the southwest, then from the southeast. Several thousand troops from 2nd Brigade also pressed toward the city from the north. Army officers said they believe the cordon is tight enough to prevent fighters from entering the city, but probably not tight enough to keep some from slipping away.

The number of Iraqi militiamen and their whereabouts tonight remained a subject of more speculation than certainty. While some Special Forces troops had put the number of Fedayeen and Al Kut fighters at up to 2,000, the number remaining in Najaf yesterday morning was believed to be much smaller, perhaps a few hundred.

Informants indicated that survivors of the dawn bombing had fled north through an enormous L-shaped cemetery abutting Ali's tomb, or through an amusement park. Further operations to secure the city and hunt down resisters are planned.

No casualties from the 101st were reported yesterday. Iraqi civilian casualties in Najaf remain uncertain, although Col. Ben Hodges, commander of the 1st Brigade, said, "It would be almost unfathomable that nobody was injured" during the bombardment of the past two days.