IRAQ: IRAQI TROOPS WITHDRAW FROM FRONTLINE POSITIONS NEAR KAFRI AFTER BEING SHELLED FOR SEVERAL DAYS BY U.S. FORCES
Record ID:
648205
IRAQ: IRAQI TROOPS WITHDRAW FROM FRONTLINE POSITIONS NEAR KAFRI AFTER BEING SHELLED FOR SEVERAL DAYS BY U.S. FORCES
- Title: IRAQ: IRAQI TROOPS WITHDRAW FROM FRONTLINE POSITIONS NEAR KAFRI AFTER BEING SHELLED FOR SEVERAL DAYS BY U.S. FORCES
- Date: 2nd April 2003
- Summary: (W7) KIFRI, NORTHERN IRAQ (APRIL 2, 2003) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE OF VILLAGE 0.15 2. GV: SMOKE RISING FROM U.S. RAIDS EXPLOSIONS ABOVE IRAQI POSITIONS 0.24 3. MV: KIFRI RESIDENTS WATCHING IRAQI POSITIONS BEING BOMBED 0.30 4. GV: SMOKE RISING ABOVE HILL 0.38 5. SV: PESHMERGA KURDISH SOLDIERS WATCHING IRAQI POSITIONS BEING BOMBED 0.46 6. GV: MORE EXPLOSION AND SMOKE 0.53 7. MV: PEOPLE ON ROOF OF HOUSE WATCHING POSITIONS BEING BOMBED 1.03 8. GV: MORE OF SMOKE RISING ABOVE HILL 1.15 9. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (Kurdish) LOCAL COMMANDER FARAJ AHMED SAYING: "The day before yesterday and yesterday, U.S. planes bombed the Iraqi positions here. Yesterday we tried to advance to these positions from which Iraq withdrew but they shelled us and they shelled the village as well." 1.39 10. MV: HOUSE DAMAGED BY IRAQI SHELLING; PEOPLE OUTSIDE HOUSE 1.44 11. SV: BROKEN WINDOW 1.50 12. CU: DAMAGED PHOTOGRAPH OF KURDISH MAN; DAMAGED PROPERTY (2 SHOTS) 2.01 (W7) SULIEMANIYAH, NORTHERN IRAQ (APRIL 2, 2003) (REUTERS) 13. WS: INTERIOR HOSPITAL WARD WITH INJURED FROM IRAQI SHELLING OF KIFRI 2.12 14. SV: INJURED WOMAN WITH BABY LYING IN BED, 40 DAY OLD BABY 2.16 15. CLOSE UPS OF BABY (2 SHOTS) 2.27 16. SV: DIFFERENT INJURED WOMAN IN BED 2.33 17. SCU: MEDICAL EQUIPMENT ON SIDE 2.37 18. SV: INJURED MAN 2.41 19. SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (English) AZAD KARIM, DICTOR, SAYING: "Yesterday we received a lot of patients to the emergency wards. Now six patients are being treated by intensive care units, others are in surgical wards." 2.55 20. SLV: HOSPITAL CORRIDOR 3.04 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 17th April 2003 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: KIFRI, IRAQ (180 KM SOUTH OF SULIEMANIYAH) (150 KM NORTH BAGHDAD) (2KM FROM FRONTLINE)
- Country: Iraq
- Reuters ID: LVA8VIU1YFLQLN38JOBPH4ULDCCF
- Story Text: Iraqi troops have withdrawn from frontline positions
near Kifri in northern Iraq after being shelled for several
days by U.S. forces. But the Iraqis are now shelling their
former positions to prevent Kurdish troops advancing. Three
people from the village have been killed and 15 injured by the
incessant bombs. Eleven of the injured were being treated in
hospital in Suleimaniyah, 180 kilometres away.
U.S. planes bombed Iraqi troops in Kurdish-held
northern Iraq on Wednesday, forcing them to retreat in several
areas on the second day of an American onslaught, Reuters
witnesses said.
Kifri, a town of 20,000 people 120 km (75 miles) northeast
of Baghdad, bore the scars of an artillery barrage launched by
Iraqi fighters after the first U.S. attacks on Tuesday opened
a new front in the war to oust President Saddam Hussein.
At least three people were killed and 15 wounded on
Tuesday, residents told this Reuters correspondent.
The Iraqi forces left some of their frontline positions in
such a hurry that they abandoned valuable supplies of
ammunition and injectors containing the nerve gas antidote
atropine, Reuters correspondents said.
They also left behind a deadly trail of mines.
An Iranian cameraman working for the British Broadcasting
Corporation was killed when he stepped on a mine. A BBC
producer suffered a foot injury as he worked in Kifri near the
frontline.
On Wednesday, Kurdish fighters and residents ran into the
streets, pocked with shell craters, and climbed onto rooftops
to watch planes pound Iraqi positions about one km (mile)
away. They cheered as smoke rose above hilltop bunkers.
They were the ones who decided to stay in Kifri, now
littered with debris after the Iraqi artillery attacks. Many
others have fled in recent days.
Residents said Iraqi shells had begun crashing down
shortly after the end of U.S. air raids on Tuesday morning.
The U.S. bombing is part of a gradual escalation along the
northern front. Planes have also attacked the key oil centre
of Kirkuk, 30 km (19 miles) outside the northern zone which
the Kurds seized from Baghdad after the 1991 Gulf War.
In a message read on his behalf on state television on
Wednesday, Saddam urged Jalal Talabani, leader of the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) which controls part of the
north, to side with the Iraqi government against the U.S.-led
assault.
Talabani has backed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The
message could send a chill through Iraq's Kurdish population,
which was subjected to chemical attacks by Saddam in the
1980s.
Kurds have enjoyed self-rule in Iraq's three northernmost
provinces since 1991, protected by a U.S. and British
patrolled no-fly zone after Saddam brutally put down a Kurdish
uprising at the end of the Gulf War.
jrc/
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