'Worse to come,' says Iraq

'Worse to come,' says Iraq
Sunday, 23 March, 2003


Senior Iraqi government ministers briefed the media on Sunday on fighting around Basra and near the city of Nasiriya.

Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahhaf said four US tanks were destroyed and a number of US troops killed after their convoy was intercepted by Iraqi troops en route from Basra airport.

He told a news conference in Baghdad that other US soldiers were killed and a number of others taken prisoner in the marshes of Jabayish district, 60 kilometres south of the city.

Mr al-Saeed:


"The first dispatch is from the south, from Basra.

"The Americans tried to move a column of tanks from the area of Basra International Airport. It was a civilian quarter known as Juzayzah. The Iraqi fighters confronted them.

"They destroyed four tanks and killed a number of the American mercenaries and wounded a number of others.

"As for the rest, they fled like rats. They fled and took refuge behind a hill near a bridge in the area called Zubayr.

"Now the militias in the area are surrounding those rats.

"The other dispatch, the second dispatch, is from another area in the marshland, south of Basra, more than 60 km away and called Jabayish in the marshland.

"The American troops transported by a helicopter landed in Jabayish.

"The armed Iraqi tribes and the fighters of the Ba'ath Party besieged them and killed and captured a number of them.

"The helicopter came back and took the rest.

"In Nasiriya... they sent a drone to survey the area. The drone was shot down by the fighters in the area.

"It seems that the Americans sent that drone to photograph and survey the area to know the number of the tanks that have been burnt and destroyed and the number of those killed..."

Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told a news conference that the progress of the military campaign to date was "excellent".



Mr Ramadan:

"These operations are going on in an excellent and comfortable manner for Iraq.

"It has been proven to us that the US and British administrations have depended on their strategy and planning based on the information obtained from the traitors, whom they call opposition, and from some intelligence services of some Arab countries, which we have already spoken about...

"They said: 'Let some missiles be fired for the maximum of three days and then everything would be over.' Therefore, we find them in a state of confusion. They prevent the media from having access to the facts about the military operations under security pretexts.

"They say that they are heading towards Baghdad and that they covered more than 160 or 180 km towards Baghdad.

"I would like to tell them, that in the course that they are following, let them continue up to 300 km and let them mobilise all the tanks and marines they have, and we will not clash with them soon. We will give them enough time.

"However, in any contact with any Iraqi village or city, they will find what they are now witnessing in Umm Qasr and Suq al-Shuyukh [south-east of Nasiriya].

"Within hours from now, you will see the prisoners who attacked Suq al-Shuyukh, the American prisoners. You will see them on Iraqi television.

"Within hours, you will see the prisoners on the Iraqi TV screen.

"Also, you will see films of burned tanks and vehicles on the border of Suq al-Shuyukh."

BBC Monitoring , based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.



© BBC MMIII