The U.S. 3rd Infantry Division and the Medina Division of the Iraqi Republican Guard are nose to nose at Karbala, a strategic crossroads 60 miles south of Baghdad.
"This engagement will determine if this is a long or short war," an Army officer at the Pentagon told the Washington Post’s Thomas Ricks.
If Iraq plans to use chemical weapons, this is likely to be the engagement they’ll choose.
U.S. forces are continuing to push forward into the "Karbala gap," a 20-mile stretch separating the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division and the entrenched positions of the Medina Republican Guard Division. Fierce sandstorms, which are forecast to last another two days, slowed progress and hampered some air operations.
American troops reported fierce fighting along their route of advance.
Decisive action probably will not occur until this weekend.
The Iraqis no doubt will take advantage of the weather to resupply troops and perhaps reposition some of their armor. When the skies clear, we probably can expect at least a couple of days of intense air activity before any ground combat.
From Basra, good news …
Two Red Cross engineers are working on the city’s water-treatment plant and hope to have water service restored to parts of the city today. The city's 1.7 million inhabitants have been without water since lasts Friday.
… and bad
The urban street fighting the U.S. and Britain have wanted to avoid seems all but certain now.
The British, whose forces have surrounded Basra, say that the city is now “a legitimate military target” because the Iraqi 51st Division has dug in there. A military spokesman said there will be no indiscriminate bombardment of the city, but that British troops will target Iraqi forces. How this plays out could give a small-scale picture of the likely nature of the coming battle for Baghdad.
Bus bombing may not have been an accident
On Monday, a “stray” U.S. missile destroyed a Syrian bus near the border with Iraq. The U.S. promptly apologized. But according to DEBKAfile, “The missile was no stray. It was deliberately fired from an F-15 fighter-bomber at a bus carrying armed Palestinian volunteers to join up with Iraqi forces, in order to make sure this was the last such Palestinian group of volunteers for Iraq. That F-15 made a piece of history; it carried out the first American air attack on a combatant Palestinian group. More will certainly be heard of this episode.”
Poof!
The U.S. command said all six GPS-jammers, sold to Iraq by Russia in a deal that has plunged relations between Washington and Moscow to a new depth of chilliness, have been destroyed.
What newspapers are saying
The British newspaper The Guardian rounds up opinion and analysis on the war.
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