More suicide attacks on the way, Iraq vows

By John Daniszewski and Tyler Marshall
Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq — As an intense aerial campaign blasted Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard on the outskirts of this capital yesterday, the Iraqi regime hailed a suicide bomber who killed four U.S. soldiers as a hero — and warned that more such attacks will be carried out, both against allied forces in Iraq and in the United States itself.

Lance Cpl. Monty Monteith, left, and Trooper David Black of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards take a short smoke break in their Challenger II tank at their makeshift camp known as Bridge Four, just outside Basra. Associated Press

"We will use any means to kill our enemy in our land, and we will follow the enemy into its land."

U.S. military officials denounced the bombing as an act of desperation and said it will not affect the way they carry out the war. But they ordered security increased at checkpoints, and the attack appeared certain to raise the level of tension and caution among allied forces who encounter civilians — and thus inhibit the military's ability to win public support.

The suicide bombing came as U.S. war planners intensified the air war and debated whether a larger ground force is needed in the drive toward Baghdad, according to defense officials. U.S. aircraft continued to pound the Republican Guard's Medina Division, deployed to defend the southern approaches to Baghdad, while the Iraqi capital itself was hit by some of the most ferocious airstrikes of the war. U.S. defense officials acknowledged privately that they intended to slow the ground campaign for a few days, in part to let the air war wear down Iraqi defenses, and presumably to allow front-line troops to get fresh supplies.

"I'm going to pause, and I'm going to work him (the enemy) over until I've got him where I want to," said a senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "I want them pounded to dust until the only thing they can do is weakly wave their hand as we pass on to our objective We do not want a fair fight."

U.S. warplanes launched bombing raids today near Karbala, south of Baghdad, on a fuel depot for Iraqi Republican Guard forces.

Thousands of Marines in south-central Iraq were also pushing north toward Baghdad in "seek and destroy" missions today, trying to clear "Ambush Alley," and stop days of attacks on all sides, according to field reports.

Infantry, tank units and other troops from the Marine 3rd Battalion 4th Regiment and other units were moving into previously unsecured areas, seeking to provoke attacks and reveal the positions of Iraqi fighters.

In Baghdad, coalition aircraft struck at surface-to-air missile batteries, "regime control" facilities and a paramilitary training site late yesterday. Military officials were trying to determine the extent of the damage.

The U.S. Central Command in Qatar said satellite-guided munitions targeted the missile complexes in the eastern part of the capital, the Abu Garayb Presidential Palace in western Baghdad and an intelligence complex on the Tigris River in southern part of the capital.

Officials said the Karada Intelligence Complex is used to direct military intelligence operations and coordinate the oppression of internal opposition.

Central Command said aircraft bombed the barracks in the main training facility of the Iraqi paramilitary forces in eastern Baghdad.

In western Iraq early yesterday, U.S. Army Rangers raided in the dark what defense officials described as an Iraqi commando headquarters as part of a strategy aimed at ejecting all Iraqi forces from the region. The raid netted a large number of prisoners, Maj. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal said at the Pentagon.

In southern Iraq, Marines entering the city of Nasiriyah discovered possessions from some of the nine Americans who went missing during an ambush in the area a week ago. They were then led to a shallow grave that appeared to contain the remains of fallen Americans.

Marine units later took control of a major military base on the fringe of the city that contained large amounts of weapons and protective chemical suits. Despite hours of fighting, the Marines were unable to silence sniper fire in the area and by nightfall yesterday, the town was still declared to be unsafe.

Yesterday's suicide attack on a road near the central Iraq city of Najaf marked the first of its kind carried out against U.S. forces since the invasion began. As such, it represents a further escalation in a deadly Iraqi guerrilla campaign organized mainly by members of Saddam's paramilitary groups to slow the allied advance on Baghdad and sap morale.

An officer with the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade told reporters traveling with the unit that the bomber was the driver of a taxi who appeared to motion to soldiers for help as his car approached their checkpoint.

As the Americans neared the vehicle, it exploded, killing all four soldiers as well as the car's occupant. The attack came after several prominent Muslim clerics in the region urged their people to resist the invaders.

Iraq has long recognized the value of suicide attacks. For the last three years, Saddam has paid $10,000 rewards to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers killed carrying out attacks on Israelis.

In early February, a tape recording apparently made by Osama bin Ladin gave Iraqis advice on how to resist allied forces, suggesting, among other tactics, "the importance of martyrdom attacks against the enemy."

Suicide bombers are commonly known as martyrs in the Muslim world.

In Baghdad, the suicide bomber was identified as an Iraqi army noncommissioned officer who was immediately hailed as a national hero. Saddam reportedly awarded him two posthumous medals.

Although yesterday's suicide bombing was the first carried out in this war against U.S. forces, it was apparently not the first car bomb targeted at Americans.

Two days earlier, troops of the 1st Marine Division came across a suspicious automobile parked along a convoy route and, when they destroyed it, found it had been loaded with explosives.

At the Pentagon, defense officials insisted that the suicide bombing won't change the tenor of the war.

"It won't change our overall rules of engagement. It doesn't affect the operation at large. But to protect our soldiers, it clearly requires great care," said McChrystal, vice director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

McChrystal and other U.S. military commanders say the campaign overall is going well.

A lengthy air campaign to crush the Republican Guard could postpone the battle for Baghdad and would bring the strategy of this conflict closer to that of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, analysts said. But it would not necessarily extend a war that some planners privately estimated would take six weeks.