Battle over Nasiriyah a preview of what awaits

By Alexandra Zavis and Ellen Knickmeryer
Associated Press

IN THE IRAQI DESERT — Artillery and rocket barrages set buildings on fire and raised a pall of thick, black smoke over Nasiriyah yesterday as Marines outside the Euphrates River city tried to stamp out Iraqi resistance on a key supply route to Baghdad.

At least some units at the front end of the lightning advance toward the capital have been ordered to halt for what officers in the field called an operational pause to give them a chance to resupply. The closest U.S. forces are about 50 miles south of Baghdad.

Marines set up makeshift camps on the side of a road, waiting for badly needed fuel supplies and working to improve communications with units further back.

"We're trying not to screw ourselves up and to watch our rear by establishing these lines of communication," a lieutenant in the battalion said.

Helicopter gunships tried to wear down Saddam Hussein's best fighters protecting the approaches to the capital. In the 101st Airborne Division's first known offensive mission of the war, its Apaches hit tanks and installations of the Republican Guard.

Two Apaches crashed as they returned to the 101st's base in a remote part of the southern Iraqi desert, but all crew members escaped injury.

The battle over Nasiriyah gave a sample of the kind of firefight that may await coalition forces in Baghdad, 200 miles to the north.

All day, Marines fought pockets of Iraqi fighters. Cobra helicopters fired rockets into the city, raising plumes of white smoke. Artillery and tank fire rumbled, sparking bursts of white flame low on the horizon. Helicopter crews drew almost continuous small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

Four Marines with the 1st Expeditionary Force were missing.

Heavy smoke from a burning power plant poured over the city of 500,000, and other buildings were also on fire. In Nasiriyah's eastern neighborhoods, some buildings were reduced to shells.

U.S. forces were trying to clear the strategic road around Nasiriyah, which lies at a junction of highways leading up to Baghdad and has been the scene of fierce fighting the past week.

Farther up the road, troops were pushing north toward Baghdad with food, fuel and other supplies. North of Najaf, the Army's V Corps defeated paramilitary attacks, military officials said.