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Sergeant screamed: 'Get down on your bellies – this ain't done yet'

Andrew Buncombe,Kuwait Border,Cahal Milmo
Monday 24 March 2003 01:00 GMT
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As smoke rose from the spot where, moments earlier, a Javelin missile had slammed into an enemy compound and an unidentified military vehicle came into view, the hoarse voice of US Marine Sergeant Nick Lerma screamed: "Get down on your bellies, this ain't done yet."

The battle for Umm Qasr, the Iraqi port close to the Kuwaiti border, flared ferociously back into life yesterday after US forces found themselves sucked into an early morning firefight with about 120 entrenched opponents.

It was a struggle much like any other of the dozens taking place simultaneously across Iraq yesterday, barring one dramatic detail – this encounter was being beamed live into the sitting rooms of the world.

Millions who switched on their television sets at breakfast time yesterday watched extraordinary footage of the four-hour battle between members of Fox company of the US 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit and Iraqi fighters holding a compound of low-rise buildings on the edge of the town.

Umm Qasr had supposedly been under the control of Anglo-American forces since Friday. That day, US soldiers had controversially raised the Stars and Stripes over the town only to rapidly take it down again. But the "pockets of resistance" that had begun to dog the Allied advance across southern Iraq yesterday became only too clear shortly after 7am GMT when Fox company came under fire from the Iraqi troops, possibly members of the Republican Guard.

An "embedded" crew from Sky News accompanying the US troops recorded what followed in giddying detail as the camera captured soldiers perched on a sand berm firing machine guns and mortars at the compound 300m away.

As some marines peered through binoculars and others took drags from cigarettes, the live pictures showed two of the men firing the Javelin – a shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon. To shouts of "that was off", the first missile fell short of the tree-shrouded compound. As the second hit its target squarely, sending a plume of white dust and smoke into the air, it was greeted with loud American whoops and screams of "Oh, yeah".

The cameras, whose pooled footage was shown live by the BBC, ITV and American networks, to name but a few, panned several times to show shells being fired from two M-1 Abrams tanks as the marines called for back-up.

The area was cleared when Fox company called in air strikes from an American F-15 and a British Harrier. At least two 500lb bombs could be seen tearing into the compound. Large columns of black smoke dirtied the blue skies above the town after they exploded.

The air strikes were called in after the marines' efforts to dislodge the Iraqis failed. Though some reports said the bomb run had resulted in a number of Iraqi soldiers waving white flags and surrendering, the situation in the port was still unclear. American snipers had taken up positions to monitor the buildings because soldiers said the situation there was "dangerous" and access was restricted. One US commander said: "It made sense for us to do this. Rather than send men in there, we're just going to destroy it."

The fight for Umm Qasr and the ability of a small number of Iraqis to hold up a significantly stronger force which had more sophisticated equipment was no small embarrassment for Allied officials.

In the Iraqi capital, the country's Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, said: "The heroic Iraqi fighters in Umm Qasr will throw the infidel British and American mercenaries to certain death. We have drawn them into a quagmire and they will never get out of it."

But it was also suggestive of the difficulties that could lie in wait for the British and American forces as they march towards Baghdad. Military commanders had always said they would avoid urban warfare as much as was possible, and yet at Umm Qasr – one mile inside Iraq – such plans have already had to be rethought.

Lieutenant Colonel Ben Currie, a spokesman for the 3 Commando Brigade, the unit co-ordinating the battle for Umm Qasr and the surrounding Al-Faw peninsula, said: "Umm Qasr and the port are absolutely vital to us and we are going to have to go in and seize it. We're going through and clearing it street by street, house by house."

Others expressed concern that the newfound ability to beam live pictures of a desert battle was distorting the public perception of war rather than making it more realistic.

Alexander Giles, a defence analyst, said: "The footage is astonishing but not that healthy. It shows marines blatting off rounds and tanks firing into buildings but it doesn't give any idea of the confusion or terror of battle ... We should remember that every time a tank fires into a building, people probably die."

Britain and America plan to use the port to bring in humanitarian supplies as well as equipment to restock their troops. Two British ships carrying supplies – the Argus and the Galahad – have been held up in the Gulf waiting to hear that the port is safe.

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