Marines Ponder Reports of Iraqis' Premature Surrender
By MICHAEL WILSON
WITH MARINE TASK FORCE TARAWA, west of Amara, Iraq, April 8 — If enemy troops decided to give up, but there was no opposing force to surrender to, did it really happen?
A group of Marine battalions from Task Force Tarawa swung east today toward Amara, near the Iranian border, to confront the 10th Armored Division of the Iraqi Army and determine
whether it intended to surrender.
But on the initial approach to the city, there was no Iraqi division to be found.
"Apparently the 10th Armored capitulated yesterday, but they didn't have anybody to capitulate to," Lt. Col. Glenn Starnes of a Marine artillery battalion said. "The locals around there are
saying they stacked their weapons, parked their vehicles and walked away. Right now, there is no enemy that we know of."
A small allied unit will approach the division's headquarters on Wednesday to make sure the Iraqis have surrendered. In the meantime, there were reports of rioting in Amara, perhaps
between civilians and members of the dominant Baath Party, and the Marines do not plan to intervene, Colonel Starnes said.
"There's no forces in that city we need to take on," he said.
There were signs of surrender early today, when 13 men approached Marine vehicles on the way to Amara and surrendered. They were quickly searched and questioned on the blacktop.
"Bagging them and tagging them," as one marine put it, placing their wallets and prayer beads in plastic bags and giving each a number that matched the one written in marker on each
man's hand. The soldiers were taken to a Marine camp, their wrists bound with rope.
One Iraqi soldier told an interpreter that three days ago they freed a group of their fellow soldiers who had been imprisoned for deserting.
Later today, another encouraging sign for coalition forces: on the north side of a bridge through the village of Kumayt, across the Tigris River, a "battalion's worth" of tanks were found
abandoned, not a soldier in sight, a marine said.
Marines from an infantry battalion approached the bridge, but local residents told them it was wired with explosives. The civilians said they had cut the wires, but the marines waited until
their own engineers had checked out the explosives.
The tanks appear to be what is left of a forward guard of the Iraqi armored division. "It's not the breadbasket," said Capt. Walker Field. "Far from it."
At full strength, the Iraqi division was thought to have 219 tanks, 260 armored personnel carriers, more than 60 artillery pieces and more than 5,000 soldiers, but those numbers are thought
to have dropped dramatically, perhaps as much as 75 percent, after airstrikes in recent days.
The little town of Kumayt gave the Marines a warm welcome, crowding around individual men, tugging on sleeves, tapping shoulders, shouting in Arabic. "They think I'm Santa Claus,"
said Maj. Daniel Geisenhof, surrounded by a couple of dozen men and boys offering him sunflower seeds.
"U.S. soldiers help the Iraqi people," one man said in English. "Iraq people support Mr. Bush because Mr. Bush loves the Iraqi people."
Word of the bombing in Baghdad on Monday that had Saddam Hussein and his two sons as targets had already spread to the town.
"Saddam dead and two sons," the man said, though it seemed impossible that he could be sure. "Let's become people happy for the news."
nytimes.com. |
