Many US casualties in Nassiriya battle; Footage of American POWs, including woman, shown on Iraqi TV

23/03/2003| IslamWeb

On Sunday afternoon, the Qatar-based television al Jazeera broadcast Iraqi TV, showing a videotape of at least 10 US POWs, including one female soldier, and a room with some 15 bodies of US troops. The live broadcast included also footage of a battlefield area in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya with additional corpses of US soldiers as well as struck military equipment.

The videotape has also shown how the Iraqis investigate the American POWs. The prisoners were questioned on air and gave their names, military identification numbers and hometowns.

Asked why he came to Iraq, one captive replied "I come to fix broke stuff." The interviewer asked him if he came to shoot Iraqis. "No I come to shoot only if I am shot at," he said. "They (Iraqis) don't bother me, I don't bother them."

Another prisoner, who said he was from Texas, said only: "I follow orders." A voice off-camera asked "how many officers" were in his unit. "I don't know sir," the man replied.

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Air Force conceded that there were American soldiers missing, but said that there were fewer than 10 troops unaccounted for in southern Iraq.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned Sunday it was possible that Iraqi forces had taken U.S. prisoners, saying there were unaccounted soldiers and journalists in the combat zone.

He noted that under the Geneva Conventions governing prisoners of war, "It's illegal to do things to POWs that are humiliating to those prisoners."

Earlier, it was reported that U.S. Marines battled for control of Nassiriya, taking "significant" casualties in a fight to open a route north to Baghdad, military officials said.

Reuters quoted military officials as saying the Marine battalion spearheading the fight had suffered significant casualties in the battle.

A total of 11 U.S. soldiers were captured after taking a wrong turn, and 50 military personnel have been wounded in the massive firefight in Nassiriya
According to the report, 11 soldiers, maintenance workers, had taken a wrong turn outside the city on a mission to carry out repair work. They were traveling in a column of vehicles that came under heavy fire, including from an Iraqi tank. Other forces nearby observed the capture.

The firefight at Nassiriya blocked an advance by U.S. forces, who had earlier reported securing two key bridgeheads to enable them to cross the Euphrates and strike northwards toward the Iraqi capital.

Reuters said there was heavy U.S. helicopter traffic over the area, and that hundreds of U.S. military trucks and armored personnel carriers had stopped their advance.

Iraqi Information Minister Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf told a news conference in Baghdad that foreign invaders headed to Nassiriya had been "taught a lesson they will never forget." "We have placed them in a quagmire from which they can never emerge except dead," he said

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American POW