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DIWANIYAH, IRAQ
Toward Baghdad... and back again
By Scott Bernard Nelson, Globe Staff, 3/28/2003
At about 9 a.m., thousands of Marines set out north on the main highway in armored vehicles. They traveled about 20 or 30 miles and fanned out along the edges of the road. After a couple of hours, they returned to their original encampment.
To a Globe reporter accompanying a combat artillery unit of the Second Battalion of the 11th Marine Regiment, the eight-hour journey looked at times like a giant traffic jam, as the vehicles ground slowly along the road. On the way back, there was sniper fire from a house about 1,000 yards from the highway. A Navy F-14 Tomcat struck the house with two 500-pound bombs.
At another point, the convoy drew machine-gun fire. Officers said they had been told that two Marines were killed during the day by Iraqi fire. Sniping and small-scale ambushes have been common.
The Marines' camp at Diwaniyah, about 110 miles south of Baghdad, was awaiting fresh supplies from the south after the hard weeklong push from Kuwait. Meals were cut from three a day to two starting last night, and fuel was growing scarce.
Still, the Marines here welcomed the respite after the hectic first week in Iraq, in which they fought their way through sometimes heavy Iraqi fire at Nasiriyah, an important crossing over the Euphrates about 50 miles farther south.
Along the way, the Marines encountered periodic sniping and guerrilla ambushes, which brought airstrikes and artillery barrages.
This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 3/28/2003.
he US Marines made a 20-mile charge toward Baghdad yesterday. Then they turned around and came back. Units of the First Marine Division launched the maneuver from their camp near this strategic town on the east bank of the Euphrates River, about 110 miles south of Baghdad. The brief thrust north appeared to be a feint, intended to confuse Iraqi units in the area that were harassing another major American force, the Third Infantry Division, which is camped about 50 miles to the west, near Najaf.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
