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DIWANIYAH, IRAQ

Along road, Marines learn to fear the night

By Scott Bernard Nelson, Globe Staff, 3/29/2003

s the sky darkens, the tensions rise. The Marines have dug in for another night along the main highway through this strategic town, awaiting Iraqi sniper bullets and mortar fire.

Forced to remain camped in one spot for the past few days while supplies catch up with the front lines, the Marines spent much of yesterday toughening their defensive positions and dispatching patrols to hunt for the Iraqi militia fighters who have shot up the American column's flanks each night.

Illumination flares regularly light up the sky, and artillery and mortar fire interrupt the soldiers' attempt to catch some sleep, on cots under the open sky or on the floors of their armored vehicles, before what many expect to be the assault on Baghdad, about 110 miles to the north.

The Marines here yesterday were able to refuel their armored vehicles and Humvees for the first time in days when several huge tanker trucks arrived from the south. Many fuel tanks had run perilously low after the relentless drive north from the Kuwait border over the past week.

And after warnings that declining food supplies would mean that meals would be cut to just one meal a day, fresh rations arrived -- enough for another four to six days.

The resupply cheered up the soldiers. Some had worried that the 200-mile-plus supply lines back to Kuwait had grown dangerously thin -- or worse, that the Iraqi irregulars farther south had been able to cause enough havoc to seriously slow the deliveries.

The Marines here also took heart in the growing number of patrols by Cobra attack helicopters. In the early days of the march from Kuwait, there had been little visible airpower. Starting yesterday, the number of attack helicopters in the skies grew dramatically, making the Marines feel far more secure.

Those daylight helicopter patrols also reinforce the feeling that the Iraqis can do nothing in the daylight hours.

But it remains a potentially deadly challenge for the Marines to distinguish enemy fighters from unarmed citizens. A Marine unit killed three Iraqis near here on Thursday when their truck backfired and the Americans mistakenly thought they were being fired upon, officers said.

Captain Matthew Kolich, commanding officer of an artillery battery for the Second Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, attributed such episodes to Iraqi guerrilla tactics. He said some militia members have walked toward American troops with groups of women and children, then pushed them aside to fire automatic weapons.

"If they are going to use human shields and they are going to dress like civilians, it's pretty confusing for the Marines," Kolich said.

Kolich said the threat grows at night.

"They try to move at night, making it more difficult for us to tell whether it's enemy out there or just Iraqi citizens moving around the battlefield," said Kolich. "During the day, it's a lot easier for us to find them and to shoot them both from the ground and air."

US forces' pursuit of the militia has grown steadily more ferocious.

For the second straight day, US forces yesterday hit a suspected Fedayeen stronghold just off the highway near here with artillery and mortar fire. The road, on the east bank of the Euphrates River, is considered a key route north for the American assault, so it is critically important for both sides.

From several miles away smoke could be seen rising from the suspected Iraqi militia site, a cluster of houses about 1,000 yards from the road, and explosions detonated there throughout the day. A day earlier, US Navy F-14 Tomcat jets had dropped 500-pound bombs on the same site.

Still, the day was relatively quiet, apart from one incident in which members of an infantry company test-fired their machine guns without warning two nearby units. In the confusion that followed, Marines dove into fighting holes and jumped into the gun turrets of Humvees and trucks.

The mood of most Marines appeared to be upbeat, despite the lull in the advance and the militia tactics the Marines face each night. Most soldiers believe that there is little Iraq can do to stop them militarily, and that the only question is whether and when politicians in Washington would let them finish the job.