US preparing to fight Iraqi column near Kerbala

5.00pm

WASHINGTON - Pentagon officials say US forces are preparing to engage a small Iraqi column consisting of light vehicles travelling south from Baghdad in the direction of Kerbala, playing down earlier reports of a large column.

"We understand there are a few vehicles that are coming south from Baghdad toward the Kerbala gap, I guess, is the general direction ... They're being engaged as we find them," General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news briefing in Washington.

"It won't matter whether it's day or night. We don't think they're armored vehicles. They're light vehicles of some sort," he said.

Earlier, there were conflicting reports on the size of the column, with some saying that a "huge" column of elite Republican Guard units had streamed out of Baghdad toward US forces massed near the southern Iraqi city of Najaf.

"There's no substantiation of that on the battlefield," General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN in an interview.

"If they were to come out into the open, it would be a good thing" for the American-led forces, he added.

In Baghdad, the Iraqi military said in a statement handed to Reuters that the Republican Guard had engaged the Americans in battle for the first time since the start of the US-British invasion of Iraq six days ago.

The statement gave no details and it was not clear whether the statement was referring to the vehicles Myers said were heading to Kerbala.

The Iraqi statement vowed that Iraqi resistance to the US-led invasion would stiffen in the near future.

"The coming days will be more difficult and harsher on them. By God, they have no way out of this deadly trap except to admit defeat and flee," said the 18-page statement, which was also read on Iraqi state television.

"After the invaders received painful blows from the sons of Iraq, now is the turn of the heroic elite divisions of the men of difficult missions, the men of the great leader Saddam Hussein, the heroes of the Republican Guards. ... At dawn today they carried out their first devastating operations inflicting fear and panic in the hearts of the enemy."

Commanded by Saddam's youngest son, Qusay, the 60,000-80,000 men in the six divisions of the Republican Guard are mostly minority Sunni Muslims like Saddam and are traditionally the shock troops of his armed forces.

The cream of the force is the Special Republican Guard, four more-trusted brigades totaling up to 25,000 men from Saddam's al-Bu Nassir tribe and clans from his home region around Tikrit.

Set up in the 1990s and trained in commando tactics and urban warfare, their job is to protect Baghdad, Saddam's power base around Tikrit, his palaces and other symbols of his rule.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq