Severely edited, current as of 6:20 AM GMT
U.S. troops, scarves protecting their faces against the dust, advanced through the Iraqi desert in convoys Friday, a day after they and British forces launched the war's ground assault. As the U.S. Marines and Army drove deeper into Iraq, British troops moved on the strategic al-Faw peninsula - Iraq's access point to the Persian Gulf and the site of major oil facilities. British military officials said they hoped to seize the key port of Umm Qasr before the day's end. Through the night and as the sun rose, artillery barrages lit up the sky, and witnesses in northern Kuwait side said they could hear thunderous explosions from the Umm Qasr area.
| FoxNews was saying Faw was under our control last night... |
Thursday evening, U.S. forces in northern Kuwait signaled the start of their advance on Iraq with a thundering artillery barrage over the border. Infantrymen on the move, their weeks of waiting at an end, cheered as shells screamed overhead. Under the shelter of night and supported by heavy bombing, the armored vehicles of the 1st Marine Division rolled into southern Iraq at around 9 p.m. local time. As they moved through the desert, burning oil wells were visible, spewing black smoke. The 20,000 Marines met light resistance from Iraqi ``rear guard'' units. They opened fire with machine guns on an Iraqi T-55 tank and destroyed it with a Javelin, a portable anti-tank missile.
| Exit crew of four, painfully... |
Troops from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division also crossed into Iraq and came into contact with several Iraqi armored personnel carriers, destroying at least three of them, front line troops reported by radio. Thursday evening, elite British troops were dropped by Chinook and Sea Stallion helicopters to seize oil facilities in al-Faw after U.S. Seals prepared the area, according to Britain's Press Association news agency.
| That would likely be the action where we lost a CH-46, its crew, and eight Brit Marines. Likely this will be another war where sand in the lubricants claims more lives than actual combat... |
By taking southern Iraq, the allies would command access to the Gulf and set the stage for the first major conquest on the way to Baghdad — Basra, Iraq's second largest city, just 20 miles from the Kuwait border. The move on the area between Basra and the Persian Gulf suggested that the allied strategy on the ground calls for a two-pronged attack — one to clear Iraqi resistance in the southern oil region while the other charges north toward Baghdad.
| There's also action in the west, where our guys are grabbing the airfields, and in the north. Does that make a 4-pronged attack? |
Australian troops were also in Iraq identifying targets for coalition aircraft and monitoring Iraqi troop movements, an Australian defense force spokesman said. ``Things are going very well,'' said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in Washington.
| Not precisely as planned, but very well... |
Yet conditions were sometimes difficult. The Marines drove through thick, swirling dust storms. Troops detected Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles hidden behind sand berms by the heat they gave off, and U.S. aircraft attacked the positions. None of the forces apparently encountered chemical or biological weapons. The Marines passed burning oil wells, though it was not known who had set them afire. Flames shot up hundreds of feet, thickening the air with black smoke.
Keep going, guys. |