U.S. Soldier Dies in Street Combat for Control of Najaf

One soldier from the 101st Airborne Division was killed in fierce street fighting Monday on the outskirts of the Shiite holy city of Najaf as U.S. forces moved to encircle and trap paramilitary fighters.

“We started outside the city, but we have now pushed inside, attempting to squeeze the city,” Capt. Kenrick Bourne said. “There was pretty intense fighting this morning.”

The death was the first in combat for the division, which had its first fighting of the war early Sunday. The operation escalated Monday morning, as Apache helicopters bore down on Soviet-era antiaircraft batteries and soldiers fought their way into the city of 563,000 from the north and the south.

Soldiers described the paramilitary troops as elusive and skilled in guerrilla tactics, fighting on foot with AK-47s or rocket-propelled grenades or in sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks mounted with medium machine guns.

There was no information on wounded U.S. soldiers, if any. Commanders put Iraqi losses at about 100 dead and wounded, plus 50 or more surrendering or taken prisoner.

The division’s 1st Brigade looped around the city from the south as the 2nd Brigade pushed from the north, commanders said. The 1st Brigade also was trying to seize an airfield east of the city, near the Euphrates River, working its way past mines on the airport road.

The airport would give the division a site just 83 miles from Baghdad from which to mount helicopter assaults. It also would provide access for humanitarian aid.

“We’re here to rid An Najaf of paramilitaries and Baath Party militias and to remove Saddam Hussein’s yoke over this city,” Bourne said.

The infantry seized control of the main bridge over the Euphrates River, blocking a key escape route and resupply artery for the paramilitary fighters. The operation is designed to neutralize the paramilitary fighters, who have harassed the rear supply and communication lines of the 3rd Infantry Division, a mechanized unit that bypassed Najaf en route to Karbala, 48 miles northwest.

Three brigades of the Iraqi Medina Division, which has been hammered by Apache gunships, warplanes and surface-to-surface missiles, are regrouping just north of Hillah, a city of 524,000 about 35 miles northeast of Najaf, intelligence officers said.

Estimates of the number of paramilitary fighters trapped in Najaf, provided by division intelligence officers, have ranged from a couple of hundred to more than 1,000. They include Baath Party loyalists, various street fighters and Fedayeen Saddam fighters loyal to President Saddam Hussein.

The 101st soldiers were backed by M-1A1 Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. They were attacked by small arms, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. Two batteries of Soviet-made 57-millimeter antiaircraft guns that had been harassing Apache gunships were destroyed by the helicopters, along with a Soviet-made T-55 tank. Although all Apaches in the operation returned safely to base, several were damaged by antiaircraft fire, officers said.

Today, soldiers found a large dump truck containing what the military suspected could be chemicals for use in weapons.

One intelligence officer said prisoners of war who surrendered in Najaf told interrogators that “the word is spreading” that Iraqi fighters who surrender to U.S. forces will be well-treated. About 30 POWs were interrogated Monday by legal and civil affairs officers within a ring of concertina wire at a desert camp west of Najaf.

All wore burlap hoods and their wrists were bound with plastic handcuffs -- except for a man holding the hand of his young son, who stood wide-eyed and weeping. All of the prisoners were in civilian clothes.

U.S. forces were careful Monday to avoid damaging important Shiite shrines and mosques in Najaf, commanders said. Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad, is buried in the city in a shrine with a luminous gold dome and twin minarets.

If U.S. forces are attacked from within significant religious, educational or medical buildings, their rules of engagement instruct them to respond with proportional force while trying to avoid damage to the structures.