A British military source said: "They fought as a unit, they fell back as a unit, they counter attacked as a unit. A number of Iraqis were reported to have been taken prisoner. The engagement, involving troops from the 16th Air Assault Brigade, began late yesterday afternoon and carried on into the early hours of the morning.The British force, including tanks and artillery, encountered an Iraqi force of two infantry companies – around 300 to 400 men – also supported by tanks and artillery.In the fighting that followed, 17 Russian–built T55 tanks and five artillery pieces were destroyed. The 16th Air Assault Brigade, including tanks and artillery,destroyed the Russian-built T55 tanks after encountering an Iraqi force of two infantry companies. Tank battle: The Iraqi tanks were destroyed in the Rumaila oilfields. The US Central Command said the attacks were carried out simultaneously by multiple B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers, adding that it was the first time all three long-range strike aircraft had targeted the same area at the same time.Meanwhile, military sources said today that British troops destroyed 17 more tanks in a running battle with Iraqi forces. A huge blast hit central Baghdad today, reportedly striking the palace of Saddam Hussein's son Qusay and sending smoke mushrooming hundreds of feet into the air. The strike came on a day when America unleashed all of its hi-tech bombers in an unprecedented onslaught in and around Baghdad. "We will make every effort to bring his body home while we also continue to recover from Basra the body of Terry Lloyd and search for the missing ITV news crew members.".
It is not a Terry Lloyd situation." ITN executives expressed their sense of shock and sadness.Stewart Purvis, ITN editor-in-chief, commended Mr Rado's journalistic skills and said his death was a tragedy for his friends, family and colleagues across ITN. Lieutenant-Colonel Philip DeCamp agreed.Once his perimeter was set, Capt Carter sent a military intelligence officer, fluent in Arabic, to speak with the farmers.The officer, accompanied by an assistant, brought sweets for the children. As the armoured vehicles approached, the Iraqi farmers waved white flags.Captain Chris Carter, the commanding officer, informed his battalion commander that he would need to pull his troops back a few hundred metres to avoid the farmers' dilapidated shanties. A dozen Iraqi Bedouins had taken over the old quartz mine and had dug a well, which they used to irrigate a meagre onion crop in the desert sands. One battalion, conducting a sweep on the US troops eastern flank, near the Euphrates river was slowed by the surrender of dozens of Iraqi soldiers.The men of A Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment advanced with almost no contact until they came to an abandoned mine they had planned to use as their camp.The mine was no longer abandoned.
US soldiers south of Baghdad advanced 10 miles through the Iraqi desert yesterday, having their first face-to-face meeting with civilians and detaining dozens of prisoners. The 1st and 2nd Brigades of the 3rd Infantry Division moved forward in the vicinity of Karbala, 50 miles south-west of Baghdad. Some "embedded" journalists have also attacked "unilaterals" for their reports which have been critical of the soldiers.. The behaviour of officers is, according to a number of senior correspondents, putting lives at risk.Last night, in Umm Qasr – the border town where aid distribution has been postponed because of security problems – Royal Marines refused to allow The Independent and other British newspapers entry to a largely empty hotel compound which troops were holding. It is also clear that since the death of the ITV journalist Terry Lloyd, who was travelling independently, the authorities have been keen to avoid similar incidents.The Mail on Sunday journalist Barbara Jones, who rescued Mr Lloyd's injured team-member Daniel Demoustier, has said: "We get the strong feeling the unilateralists are the untouchables, a bloody nuisance."A group of Australian journalists travelling independently were told that the military wanted to rounded them up and take their visas from them.It seems that Washington and London are not keen for their actions to be scrutinised by journalists outside their control and whose reports are not subject to censorship by "media minders". British soldiers injured when an American "tankbuster" aircraft attacked their convoy, killing one of their comrades, today complained about the "cowboy" pilot. Nevertheless it was marked "dangerous to humans if exposed for 10 minutes without a respirator".Although the discovery did not provide "smoking gun" definitive proof to support Allied claims that Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction, it represented a propaganda coup for Britain and America.
