[The following translation of the iraqwar.ru report has
been kindly provided by "Necroman". You can find the original
report in Russian as well as this translation on the iraqwar.ru site. Venik]
April 6, 2003, 2000hrs MSK (GMT +4 DST), Moscow
UPDATE -
Around Baghdad skirmishes between coalition forces and
Iraqi divisions are going on. As we said before, during
the next two days the coalition troops will extend the
zone of blockade to the west and north-west using local
strikes. Currently a part of the 1st brigade of the 3rd
Mechanized Division is outflanking the city from Abu-Harraib,
trying to reach the south outskirts and seize a strategic
bridge across the Tigris at the north of the Tunis area
(Salakh-Khasan).
Fire has not stopped near the Airport, both sides are
using artillery. According to the most recent data the
rush of the coalition forces toward to the southern borders
of Baghdad, though expected by the Iraqi command, was tactically
surprise. Hidden in the interiors of the city, parts of
the Iraqi army were unable to leave their covered positions,
advance and face the enemy. There arouse confusion that
led to disorganization of the Iraqi squadrons that engaged
their rivals “on the move”, without proper
reconnaissance and concentration of forces. According to
specified information in different conflicts and during
the assault of the airport up to 400 Iraqi soldiers were
killed, 25 tanks and 12 guns were lost.
But the coalition command also faced serious problems.
Powerful Iraqi attacks aimed at the airport immobilized
most of the force breaking towards Baghdad and it turned
out necessary to bring reinforcements from other sectors
of the front in order to succeed. In particular, up to
2 battalions of the 101st Airborne Division located by
An-Nasiriya and An-Najaf and at least 1 battalion of the
82nd Division were moved there. Americans tolls at the
south and south-east of Baghdad for the last 24 hours amount
to: up to 30 men killed and at least 80 wounded, 15 soldiers
are known to be missing. The Americans lost at least 8
tanks and 5 APC.
Marine squadrons are still incapable of breaking down
defenses by the Diyala river. Currently the vanguards are
trying to outflank the city from east and seize the bridge
in the New Baghdad region.
There are not enough coalition forces to block such a city,
and the troops blocking An-Nasiriya, An-Najaf, Al-Kut and
Al-Diwaniya were given categorical orders to break down
the Iraqi resistance in the next 3 days, take control of
those areas and advance toward Baghdad to join the blockade.
To organize offensive against Karbala the blocking troops
were enforced with one expeditionary marine squadron, and
another storm started this morning. There is no information
about casualties from this region yet.
Analogous tasks were set before the British command at
the south of Iraq near Basra.
For the past 2 days the British have tried to overcome
Iraqi defenses from An-Zubair and the Manavi regions 3
times, but they still cannot break down the resistance.
This morning an armored column was able to come up to a
strategic cross-road near Akhavat-Rezan, but got under
heavy fire and had to retreat.
Yesterday and during this morning the British lost at least
3 armored units, 2 men killed and 6 wounded.
The coalition command and the foreign policy departments
of Russia and USA are now making every effort to close
all the information related to the Russian embassy getting
fired near Baghdad.
Sources claim that the embassy ceased its activities in
many respects because of the danger of an air strike on
the embassy. The American command was utterly irritated
by the presence of the Russian embassy in Baghdad and believed
that some technical intelligence equipment was deployed
there that provided the Iraqis with information. Moreover,
some officers in the coalition HQ in Qatar openly claimed
that it was on the territory of the Russian embassy that
the “jammers” hampering the high-precision
weapons around Baghdad were operated.
Yesterday morning the Secretary of State Colin Powell demanded
of immediate evacuation of the embassy from the Russian
Minister of Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov. Yesterday evening
the Russian minister informed the Americans that on the
6th of April the embassy column would be leaving Baghdad
heading for the Syrian border. This gave rise to dissatisfaction
among the State Department officials who suggested that
the column should move to Jordan.
The coalition special operations HQ were sure that the
embassy column would contain secret devices taken from
military equipment captured by Iraqis. In this connection
one cannot shut out the possibility of “revenge” from
the coalition command.
Moreover, experts claim that the purpose of this armed
assault could be to damage a few cars where the Russians
would have to leave some of the salvage. This is also indicated
by the fact that neither the ambassador himself nor journalists
in the column were among the injured. In this case we can
expect that this action was committed by coalition special
forces and the column was shot using Russian-made weapons
to conceal the origin of the attackers to blame the Iraqis
afterwards.
According to the most recent data the column got ambushed
almost 30 km to the west from the city on the territory
occupied by the coalition, but moving fast it escaped from
fire and made a few more kilometers where it was blocked
by military jeeps. On attempting to establish contact with
their crews it received fire again, then the jeeps vanished.
Today at 5pm a phone conversation between president of
Russia Vladimir Putin and president of the USA George W.
Bush took place. Before this conversation, his assistant
for National Security Affairs Condoleezza Rice, who came
into Moscow today, had consulted Bush. At this time Rice
is meeting Igor Ivanov, the head of the Russian Ministry
of Foreign Affairs. The details of this meeting are unknown
so far, but we can suppose that very soon some “unknown
squadrons” will be made responsible for the incident
and the situation will be dampened to the maximum.
Analysts reckon that the situation with the nuclear submarine “Kursk”,
when a whole series of private contacts between top Russian
officials and American representatives brought more questions
than answers, is about to occur again to some extent.
(source: iraqwar.ru, 04-06-03, translated by Necroman)
