Orange Leader, The (Newspaper) - March 31, 2003, Orange, Texas Texas Longhorns headed for the Final Four Search and mission sensitive and crucial NEAR Iraq AP The Airborne Division encircled the Shiite holy city of Najaf on preparing for a possible battle to root out Saddam fighters but leery of damaging some of the faiths most sacred Attack on Iraq To the Army brigades crept closer to advancing 10 miles with little though battles with the Republican Guard To the Marines launched destroy missions to clear the road to Baghdad of Iraqi But it was at a city of 100 miles south of Baghdad that military leaders were faced with a dif It was unclear whether the strategy is to take Najaf or simply to cordon off the There are too many Iraqi fighters to bypass them or leave them unattended theyre a danger to supply lines on the way to Baghdad But if Najaf is a key stepping stone to the it is also a dangerous On a suicide attack killed four soldiers at a checkpoint north of town on nervous troops warned approach ing drivers they would be shot if they did not leave the This is our type of said Command Marvin of the Fort air assault This is prob ably the most dangerous part of combat and thats Sometimes you dont find out who the enemy is until theyre shooting at It is also a place where sol diers must tread with sensitiv It is in Najaf that sonin law of the prophet is buried at an extraordinary its gold dome and twin minarets gleaming for It is sur ORANGE LEADER 128 90 March 2003 2 Sections 12 50 Cents city of Najal encircled AP photo Iraqi prisoners are escorted by 1st Brigade Combat Team soldiers to a holding area near rounded by low buildings and narrow a nightmare of an urban Other Muslim prophets are buried there and at the vast al Wadi es Salaam cemetery one of the worlds largest that forms a semicircle around the Officers speaking on condition of anonymity said some of the Iraqi fighters were hiding A battle that destroyed these holy places could inflame pas sions of Shiites in Iraq and most notably Ibrahim a prominent Iranian Shiite said I dont think that anyone dares to attack a holy site in An attack on holy shrines will only provoke the trolled anger of especially with seri consequences to the Micah an attorney in the judge advocate generals said some locations in Najaf are on the no target list to be fired at only in self We take our responsibility to these things very seriously and treat them with the utmost he So the Army still held out hope that the battle could be Using loudspeakers mounted on soldiers on perimeter will soon beseech its towns AP photo Iraqi prisoners who have been detained by members of the Airborne of the Army are seen in this image from tele near Iraq people to turn over To the brigades of the Armys 3rd Infantry Division advanced 10 miles to near just 50 miles from Baghdad also a Shiite holy One battalion was slowed by the need to shepherd dozens of surrendering Iraqi A military intelligence fluent in spoke with farmers who now faced hundreds of armored vehicles outside their The officer held out fistfuls of candy for the The Iraqi men at first Stood hands behind their struggling to hold up the sticks on which they had tied flour bags in a sign of The officers message forces would not hurt but they needed to stay away from the American As they artillery fired volley after volley at the near by city of Republican Guard positions between Karbala and Baghdad continued to be tar for allied bombardment Richard chair man of the Joint Chiefs of said more than half of Sundays sorties were direct ed at the best equipped and trained At the former Iraqi air base near the southern city of that has been taken over the A10 Warthogs departed for mis sions throughout the grows in importance and size with every day it is nearer to targets than takeoff points in the Persian Kuwait or North of mean Kurdish troops took control of territory eft by Iraqi forces withdraw ing toward the oil center of They advanced almost 10 miles as the cleared more than 300 seme the size of ers as big as layer That territory came without a the continuing battles with fighters in the A British soldier was killed in action near Royal Marine Commandos at first said they captured an Iraqi general but British mil spokesman Will MacKinlay later told BBC tele vision that the report was attributing the mistake to the fog of In what was described as the Royal Marines largest opera tion of the war so the British Press Association reported fierce fighting for the town of Abu al south west of It said 30 Iraqis had been killed and hundreds captured in what the British are calling Operation named after James Key developments in the war against Iraq Frontline troops resumed a slow advance toward Baghdad on meeting friendly farmers and lit tle while British forces pushed inside Basra with the help of its besieged Targets in Baghdad hit by coalition aircraft included mili tary facilities at the Abu Presidential the tele phone the Karada military intelligence complex and the barracks of a tary training the Central Command A Marine Huey heli copter crashed at a forward supply and refueling point in southern killing peo ple the military Kurdish fighters took control of more territory left by Iraqi forces withdrawing toward the major oil center of American forces are search ing a terrorist compound in northeastern Iraq that was probably the site where mili tants made a biological the Pentagons top gener al said Marines discovered chemical masks and nerve gas antidote during a raid on buildings used by 11th Infantry Division in the southern city of Central Command The Airborne Division encircles the holy city of prepared to go door to door to root out Saddam fighters while trying to avoid damage to Shiite Royal Marine Commandos captured an Iraqi general in Basra and killed a Republican Guard colonel It was unclear if the general was from the Iraqi army or a paramilitary military leaders defend their war plan against criticism they started with too few troops and underestimated the oppo Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the most difficult days lie ahead in the confrontation over The Associated Press Leader Online Please visit our website at Weather SUNNY Highs near Light and variable winds becoming southwest 10 to 15 Please see Page for the complete weather Index Local Opinion State Weather Mystery illness from Asia advances to Canada TORONTO AP A mys tery illness with no known treatment continued to spread through Asia and Canada on killing three more people and infect ing many others as officials warned it may be more conta than originally Hong Kong health officials said 60 more people had fall en ill with a deadly more than half of them in one apartment com pushing the number of infections worldwide past Singapores health Lim Hng said the dis ease may spread more easily than first with some people found to be more infectious than Labeled as super See ILLNESS Page 2A must continue after war Vietnam vets strive to keep support for our troops now and especially when they return By Royal Hopper III The Orange Leader Marine Corps veteran Tracy Youngblood wants military personnel serving in Iraq to know they are wel come when they come He never wants them to feel like he did when he came home from Its important right now that we show unity in pur support for the troops Iraq and let them know they are not Youngblood He and his fellow Vietnam veterans are sponsoring a reunion for all military Vet erans at the USS Orleck April and They are inviting everyone to rally behind American past and When the Vietnam War was tearing the United States Youngblood was in Vietnam working on Phantom fighter jets in Chu John also a loaded bombs on the same kind of jets during the The reunion will give vet erans from different years a chance to get The public will get to hear the stories the veterans have to Youngblood said after Vietnam there was a stigma attached to military that took a long time to go I cant say it Its Leader photo by Brandon Thibodeaux Vietnam war veteran David Snapp looks over some of the items that will be displayed during a veterans reunion April 12 and 13 on the USS Orleck in important that we let these A street young vets know we are behind them 100 percent in everything they Youngblood The reunion by the Vietnam Vets Chapter 348 and American Legion Post will include tours of a special displays and muse dance with a Three Legged will feature music from the The Ronald Ray named after a Green Beret veteran of the Vietnam is something everyone I See Page 2A TIRE WHEEL CENTERS BEAUMONT GROVES ORANGE SILSBEE WOODVILLE
