>>Cheers and Smiles for U.S. Troops in a Captured City
By JIM DWYER
AJAF, Iraq, April 2 — Hundreds of American troops marched into town at midday today and were greeted by its residents.
The infantry was backed by attack helicopters and bombers, and immediately destroyed several arms caches and took over a military training facility to serve as their headquarters.
The occupying forces, from the First and Second brigades of the 101st Airborne Division, entered from the south and north. They had seized the perimeter of town on Tuesday.
People rushed to greet them today, crying out repeatedly, "Thank you, this is beautiful!"
Two questions dominated a crowd that gathered outside a former ammunition center for the Baath Party. "Will you stay?" asked Kase, a civil engineer who would not give his last hame. Another man, Heider, said, "Can you tell me what time Saddam is finished?"
Residents also pleaded for water and fuel, saying that supplies had been cut off for four days. Asked what else the people wanted, residents pointed to a building from which they said rocket-propelled grenades were launched, and asked the military to remove them.
United States Army troops encircled the city last Thursday after seizing three bridges across the Euphrates River in fierce clashes.
But today the Americans did not yet have control of the entire city. There were radio reports that paramilitary forces had seized some 20 civilian hostages in another part of town.
Among those entering the city was Kadhim al-Waeli, 30, who said he fled the city on March 23, 1991, after the first gulf war, when a Shiite uprising was brutally suppressed by the Hussein regime and after American encouragement amounted to no more than a pep talk. He is a member of what he described as the free Iraqi forces attached to a civil affairs unit of the United States Army.
"I was so glad to come back and see a guy on the street with pita bread," Mr. al-Waeli said. "I got some from him; he gave it to me and the other soldiers for free. He said you're one of them."
Mr. al-Waedi said that the local Shiites were concerned that the Americans would not secure the peace and wanted to know, "Are you going to be here or are you going to leave us?"
Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus ventured a few blocks into the town on Tuesday and was greeted by residents with cheers, smiles and tips on where to find armed agents of Saddam Hussein.
The reception then and today constituted a welcome break for American forces who have encountered a generally sullen or hostile reception from the mainly Shiite population of southern Iraq. Najaf has already cost an unexpected price, since American military planners envisioned that it would show support earlier, and without significant resistance.
Instead, the Iraqi government's paramilitary forces have used it as a base for attacks on American supply convoys. Four soldiers from the Third Infantry Division were killed by a car bomb at a checkpoint outside the town on Saturday.
It appeared from the reception on Tuesday and today that with the forces loyal to Mr. Hussein removed or defeated, the local population felt free to express its sentiments.<<
nytimes.com |
