Troops Find ‘Potential Gold Mine’
U.S. forces have captured a possible chemical weapons lab in the city of Najaf, ABCNEWS has learned. The discovery came as 12 missing American soldiers are believed to have fallen into Iraqi hands after being ambushed.
Still, amid the bloodshed in Nasiriya, military troops made a potentially key conquest. Up the road from Nasiriya, in the city of Najaf, troops overtook what appears to be a chemical weapons plant, sources told ABCNEWS' John McWethy, and the commanding general of the plant surrendered.
One official said the general could be "a potential gold mine" of information about the production and location of weapons of mass destruction that the United States has accused Saddam Hussein of hiding.
Some 1,000 Marines were engaged in intensive house-to-house fighting in Nasiriya, a strategically located city on the main road to Baghdad.
"United States Marines defeated an enemy attack there while sustaining a number of killed and wounded in the sharpest engagement of the war thus far," Lt. Gen. John Abizaid told a news briefing in Doha, Qatar.
He did not have exact casualty figures, but said he believed the number of Marines killed would "remain less than 10." The apparent capture of the U.S. soldiers came during one of several ambushes in the Nasiriya area.
"We believe them to be in the custody of the irregulars who coordinated the ambush," Central Command Operations Officer Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks told the briefing in Doha.
The group, made up of maintenance workers, was part of a supply convoy that is believed to have taken a wrong turn outside Nasiriya while on a mission to carry out repair work.
The group was traveling in a column of six vehicles that encountered a roadblock and came under heavy fire. A number of other soldiers were wounded in the attack and evacuated by helicopter, military officials said.
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