|
Cargo planes swarm north
Just a short snippet from the NY Daily News, but don't you think that except for the Kurd/Ansar asskicking, it's been very quiet up north? Too quiet?About 10 huge cargo planes an hour - packed with heavy armor, trucks, Humvees and troops - landed at a makeshift northern Iraq airstrip controlled by U.S. troops over the last 24 hours, officials said yesterday. The steady stream of planes included C-17 Globemasters, big enough to carry an Abrams tank, and C-130s. The giant planes hit the airstrip, disgorged their load and were back in the air in 30 minutes, officials said. Hummmm, this was a pretty good sized airstrip, wasn't it? A few miles away yesterday, coalition war planes pounded Iraqi positions to aid U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters as they seized territory in preparation for an advance by coalition troops. A key mission for the troops in northern Iraq will be to ensure that the Iraqi regime doesn't sabotage oil fields. Hoshiar Zebari, a leader of the governing Kurdistan Democratic Party, said limited U.S. ground operations have begun around the oil-rich, northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk. Far fewer Iraqi troops were visible outside Kirkuk than in recent days, indicating that the enemy may be retreating toward Mosul, the largest northern city. Reporters near Kirkuk estimated that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's army had pulled back 20 miles since Thursday and now occupies only the innermost of three defensive lines around the city. Sammy has been pulling forces from other areas to re-enforce the RP on the southern defenses of Baghdad. Hummmmm? Posted by: Steve 2003-04-01 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=12257 |