Word: basra
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Enveloped in Smoke and Fear BASRA TERRY MCCARTHY...
...fear that hangs over Basra is as thick and evil-smelling as the canopy of black smoke reaching across the sky from the burning oil trenches around the city. "In Basra everything is horrible for us," says Osamah Ijam, 23, a medical student who left town on Friday morning. "We see our future burning...
...past 24 hours, the frontline British checkpoint has advanced to about a mile inside Basra's southern border. Standing behind several Challenger II tanks and a Warrior APC are Captain James Moulton and soldiers of his company of Irish Guards. They check those coming down the road for weapons and then hand them leaflets promising that this time, the coalition forces will stay as long as it takes--and asking for assistance in pinpointing the enemy. "Now they are getting more used to us Brits being around," says Moulton. "A lot more people are offering information about the situation inside...
...fear is palpable even 5 miles south of Basra in the town of Zubayr, which the British captured earlier in the week. The director of the hospital there, Dr. Abdul Hussein, points to the two holes made by an antitank round as it passed straight through the walls of his office while he stood there. What he is afraid to admit--and a local resident and a British medical officer later confirm--is that the militia had been using his hospital as a base to fire on the British forces...
...terrorists who have entered, but small groups of Islamic Jihad and Hizballah agents have already infiltrated the country, and "we've got people paying attention to both approaches, from Syria and Jordan," says a U.S. counterterrorism official. Modest numbers of Iranian Shi'ites have also managed to enter Basra in southeastern Iraq to support Iraqi Shi'ites there; British and U.S. troops have warned them to stay out of the way of coalition forces...