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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: paul_philp who wrote (92162)	4/11/2003 1:40:05 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

What are they hiding? Hmmmm. April 11, 2003 Heavy Fighting for Desert Base at Syria Border By DOUGLAS JEHL [W] ASHINGTON, April 10 ? Out of sight of television cameras, some of the heaviest fighting in Iraq has been raging for nearly three weeks near the town of Qaim on the Syrian border, where American Green Berets and British commandos have been attacking units of Iraq's Special Republican Guard and Special Security Services, according to senior military and defense officials. The Iraqi forces in the area, near the Euphrates River and alongside a rail line, have been defending a large compound that includes phosphate fertilizer and water treatment plants. American officials say the sheer tenacity of the Iraqi fighters has led them to suspect that they may be defending Scud missiles or other illicit weapons. The Qaim area, nearly 200 miles northwest of Baghdad along the most direct route from the Iraqi capital to Syria, was a launching point for Iraqi ballistic missile attacks during the 1991 Persian Gulf war. It was also home to a plant used by Iraq in 1980's for uranium processing, and it has been identified since by American officials as a possible site for any effort to revive Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The reported doggedness of the Iraqi resistance has prompted some speculation within the Bush administration that the Iraqi forces might be defending members of the Iraqi leadership trying to flee to Syria. But defense officials said it was more likely they were trying to shield weapons or weapons programs. "They're protecting something, that's for sure," one senior American military official said. For now, he said, the main objective of the United States is "to keep their head down so they can't fire anything off." Despite many days of attacks by the Army's Special Forces, including what one general called "unconventional warfare direct-action missions," along with repeated airstrikes, the Iraqi forces have not given up. REST AT:http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/11/international/worldspecial/11TOWN.html?pagewanted=print&position=top