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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Fighters loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have seized the centre of the southern Nassiriya city, a Reuters witness said on Friday. A four-day-old Iraqi army crackdown on Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army in Basra, Iraq's second city and its gateway to the Gulf, has sparked fighting across the south and in Baghdad. In the capital, Iraqi lawmakers were due to hold an emergency session in a bid to end violence in the flashpoint oil city of Basra, where Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki gave militants a new deadline to hand over their weapons. A Reuters reporter...

Excerpt - BAGHDAD, March 28 (Reuters) - Fighters loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have seized the centre of the southern Nassiriya city, a Reuters witness said on Friday. A four-day-old Iraqi army crackdown on Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army in Basra, Iraq's second city and its gateway to the Gulf, has sparked fighting across the south and in Baghdad. In the capital, Iraqi lawmakers were due to hold an emergency session in a bid to end violence in the flashpoint oil city of Basra, where Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki gave militants a new deadline to hand over their...

ROME, April 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Fifteen supporters of Iraq's Shiite Muslim leader Moqtada Sadr were killed and eleven Italian soldiersslightly wounded when the two sides clashed early Tuesday in the southern Iraqi town of Nassiriya, Italian media reported. The clashes occurred when Italian soldiers were trying to disperse several hundred Shiites blocking bridges in the town, about 375 km south of Baghdad, the reports said. The reports quoted military sources as saying that three soldiers suffered minor leg wounds in the gunfire while the others received bruises and light cuts from shrapnel. The reports said the situation in Nassiriya remained...

Guerrilla leader who became a legend emerges from hiding For 13 years he was a defiant symbol of Iraqi resistance. Hunted in vain by Saddam Hussein's militia, the legendary guerrilla fighter Abu Hattem fought an extraordinary campaign against the Iraqi regime from his secluded bases in the poisoned marshland of southern Iraq. Known as the Lord of the Marshes, his exploits earned him a reputation that is a cross between Robin Hood and Lawrence of Arabia, with tales of suicidal missions and narrow escapes. Western journalists tried for years to track him down during the guerrilla years, visiting Iranian border...

Nizar Khazraji, a prominent Iraqi general who defected to the West, was assassinated Monday on his way to attend a U.S.-called meeting of opposition groups in the southern city of Nassiriya. Khazraji was sometimes mentioned as a possible successor to Saddam Hussein. In February last year, London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat quoted opposition sources in Syria as saying the US had chosen Khazraji to run Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam. The CIA was reported to have helped him escape to Kuwait from house arrest in Denmark, where prosecutors were investigating his alleged role in gas attacks on the Iraqi Kurds....

Iraqi exiles control southern town -U.S. source NASSIRIYA, Iraq, April 12 (Reuters) - Around 300 fighters, originally Iraqi exiles recruited and trained by the United States, are in control of the southern Iraqi town of Shatra, a U.S. military source said on Saturday. A Reuters photographer saw a convoy of trucks carrying Free Iraqi Forces (FIF) pass through the town of Nassiriya, 375 km (235 miles) southeast of Baghdad, armed with AK-47 rifles and wearing camouflage fatigues bearing FIF initials on their arms. The trucks, bound for Shatra some 50 km (35 miles) north of Nassiriya, were escorted by U.S....

US Marines in decoy mission as POW rescued in Iraq By Adrian Croft NEAR NASSIRIYA, April 2 (Reuters) - U.S. Marines staged a decoy attack on targets in the city of Nassiriya, including a Baath party building, to allow special forces to rescue a prisoner of war held there, military sources said on Wednesday. The Marine attack helped special forces rescue Private First Class Jessica Lynch, 19, from an Iraqi hospital in the southern city where she had been held since her maintenance convoy was ambushed by Iraqi forces on March 23. "U.S. Marines sent a large force led by...

US Marines try to weed out resistance in Nassiriya NASSIRIYA, Iraq, March 31 (Reuters) - Hundreds of U.S. Marines began scouring the outskirts of the city of Nassiriya block by block on Monday to weed out pockets of Iraqi resistance in what military sources said was a change of tactic. Reuters correspondent Adrian Croft said new units brought in to reinforce the Marines left their camp before dawn on a first foot patrol through the southern outskirts of the strategically important city, 375 km (235 miles) southeast of Baghdad. They cautiously made their way through a complex of low, white...

US says four Marines missing after Nassiriya fight AS SAYLIYA CAMP, Qatar (Reuters) - Four Marines with the U.S. 1st Marine Expeditionary Force have gone missing after fierce fighting near the Iraqi city of Nassiriya, the U.S. Central Command said Friday. A statement said the four were listed as "duty status and whereabouts unknown" after "intense combat operations" in the area around the key crossroads city on the Euphrates river in southern Iraq. Names of the missing were withheld pending notification of their families, it said. 03/28/03 11:22 ET

U.S. Marines leave trail of death on road north By Sean Maguire NORTH OF NASSIRIYA, Iraq, March 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Marines pushing north towards Baghdad left a trail of death on Wednesday as they fought off sporadic Iraqi attacks along the way. This correspondent saw about two dozen corpses among wrecked vehicles littering the road north of Shatra, including a bus with its back end blown off and bodies hanging out of the back. Iraqi small-arms fire had erupted earlier in the town of Shatra, 40 km (25 miles) north of Nassiriya, where the Marines had fought their way...

Some of the dead U.S. soldiers paraded Sunday on Iraqi TV had likely been executed in front of townspeople after being captured, it was reported today. The soldiers, part of an Army maintenance unit that got cut off from fellow troops after taking a wrong turn in Nassiriya, were among seven killed and five taken prisoner and shown on Iraqi TV. The New York Times, citing unnamed military officials, said a communications intercept indicated some of the seven dead soldiers may have been executed. The tape, recorded by Iraqi TV and aired on the Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera, showed...

DOHA, March 26 (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday that Marines seized more than 200 weapons, stockpiles of ammunition and over 3,000 chemical suits with masks at an Iraqi hospital which was being used as a "military staging area". Central Command in Qatar said in a statement that Marines operating in the southern city of Nassiriya -- scene of the fiercest fighting so far in the six-day-old war -- captured about 170 Iraqi soldiers at the hospital. They were not armed. There was no means of independently confirming the statement. Central Command said forces of the 2nd Battalion...

U.S. Marines Under Attack North of Nassiriya Wed March 26, 2003 01:38 AM ET NORTH OF NASSIRIYA (Reuters) - U.S. Marines met armed Iraqi resistance on Wednesday, halting their advance north from Nassiriya, a Reuters correspondent said. Correspondent Sean Maguire, traveling with Marine units, said the advance was halted at the town of Ash Shatrah, 25 miles north of Nassiriya where Marines had crossed the Euphrates river on Tuesday after fierce fighting. "The Marines have called in artillery strikes on to the town," he said. for information and discusion only,not for profit etc,etc.

More than 30 Iraqi corpses seen near Nassiriya NORTH OF NASSIRIYA, Iraq, March 25 (Reuters) - At least 30 Iraqis who may have been on their way to reinforce the city of Nassiriya were killed on Tuesday in what appeared to be a bombing raid by U.S.-led forces, a Reuters correspondent said. Sean Maguire said that he counted 20 dismembered bodies by a wrecked bus about 20 km (12 miles) north of the key riverside city in southern Iraq and at least 10 more fresh corpses in the wreckage of another bus, two trucks and two cars. All seemed to...

Saddam's guerrillas thwart U.S. river crossing By Sean Maguire NEAR NASSIRIYA, March 23 (Reuters) - U.S. Marines battled Iraqi guerrillas for control of the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya on Sunday, taking "significant" casualties in a fight to open a route north to Baghdad, U.S. officers said. Reuters Correspondent Sean Maguire, travelling with the Marines First Regiment south of the city, said he could see explosions and huge plumes of smoke over Nassiriya, on the Euphrates river about 375 km (225 miles) southeast of Baghdad. "It looks like artillery, or possibly air strikes," Maguire said. "There's lots of smoke rising."...

Iraqis fight but US-led forces say Baghdad in sights By Sean Maguire and Hassan Hafidh NEAR NASSIRIYA/BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 23 (Reuters) - Iraqi troops pinned down U.S. and British forces in several places on Sunday, but the invaders said they would not be deflected from driving on to Baghdad. Washington said some U.S. soldiers and an aircraft were believed missing, after Baghdad said it had downed five planes and two helicopters and would show prisoners on television. President Saddam Hussein's capital suffered a fourth day of bombardment, with some of the biggest blasts to date, as planes pounded a single...

SOUTHERN IRAQ – U.S. Marines battled for control of the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya on Sunday, taking "significant" casualties in a fight to open a route north to Baghdad, military officials said. Correspondent Sean Maguire, travelling with the Marines First Regiment south of the city, said he could see explosions and huge plumes of smoke over Nassiriya, which lies on Iraq's Euphrates river about 375 km (225 miles) southeast of Baghdad. "It looks like artillery, or possibly air strikes," Maguire said. "There's lots of smoke rising." Maguire quoted military officials as saying the Marine battallion spearheading the fight...

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 a footage of a battle field 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 home towns. The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs...

U.S. forces secure bridge over Euphrates in Iraq NEAR NASSIRIYA, Iraq, March 22 (Reuters) - U.S. forces secured a bridge over the Euphrates River west of the town of Nassiriya on Saturday in a push to clear a path towards the capital Baghdad, a U.S. military officer said. "We've established checkpoints at both ends" of the bridge, he said. Reuters correspondent Andrew Gray, travelling with the U.S. Third Infantry Division and about a mile (1.5 km) from the bridge, said that he could hear explosions in the area, apparently from artillery or grenades.

U.S. says Nassiriya in southern Iraq captured AS SAYLIYA CAMP, Qatar, March 22 (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces have captured the southern Iraqi town of Nassiriya, U.S. military spokesman Stuart Upton told Reuters on Saturday. "Nassiriya has fallen," he said from the U.S. Central Comand headquarters in Qatar. He declined to give further details. The town is a key crossing point on the Euphrates river about 320 km (200 miles) southeast of the capital, Baghdad.