Word: ansar
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...spite of the bravado, Ansar has found itself on this day on the defensive on the snowy mountains on Iraq's border with Iran, driven from its lowland frontline by a week of pummeling by Tomahawk and Cruise missiles. For a year, Ansar had fought PUK forces in trenches and bunkers on the plains below Shram mountain. Indeed, until Friday, the lowland village of Biarra was Ansar's base. But on at 2 p.m. that day, a mosque used as a terrorist headquarters, replete with a gunpit on top, was flattened by U.S. bombing. The Puck captured it an hour...
...Within 24 hours of the U.S. attack, Ansar appeared to have been overwhelmed, fleeing to a last line of defense 4,000 ft. high among the peaks. The area, near the town of Halabja, has always been a redoubt: it is full of deep caves and secretive routes for escape and supply (nicknamed "rat-lines") across the rugged frontier with Iran. "They're ex-filling across the Iranian border," says one Special Forces soldier, using commando lingo for "escaping." For despite the acumen of Ansar's snipers, the peshmerga offensive had succeeded and hundreds of Kurdish troops-along with about...
...peshmerga are as tough as Ansar is ruthless. "These guys literally walk up the mountain, get wounded and walk back down," says a U.S. medic. "They're tough sons of bitches." On Friday, as the medic worked at a casualty collection point, he says one wounded Kurdish soldier with a head wound simply straggled in, walked up and just "died...
...assault clearly took a toll on Ansar's militants. Politburo member Mahmood Sangarwi of the P.U.K. says 60 dead were left behind after Friday's battles. In the rocky terrain of Saturday's exchange I saw eight more slain Ansar fighters. Some had died in their bunkers; others were cut down as they fled over open ground or among relatively exposed rocky outcrops. Their corpses remained where they had fallen throughout the assault...
...however, the battle for Halabja seemed inconclusive. President Bush last week referred to the destruction of Ansar's base as one of the war's important early achievements. But it may be a limited achievement. In Halabjah, U.S. Commando Mark says, "A lot of the senior cadre fled a long time ago leaving a fanatical hardcore to stay for the last stand. They had little intention of surviving." The Americans blasting away at the holdouts recognize this and lament past opportunities lost. "This is my second time in northern Iraq," says a Special Forces soldier. "I should be in Tampa...