Russian Military Intel update: War in Iraq, April 6 (morning)

Post-9/11 Era Forum

Russian Military Intel update: War in Iraq, April 6 (morning)
06.04.2003 [19:01]

April 6th, Morning
Baghdad

By the morning of April 6th an uncertain and quickly changing situation has developed. Coalition divisions are continuing to advance toward the city outskirts. The 22nd and 15th expeditionary marine squadrons are trying to break into the region of military airport "Rashid" from south-east. Iraqis are holding the line along the Diyala river and currently the marines cannot capture beach-heads on the right bank.

A hard situation has formed near the international airport. The day before yesterday the Iraqi minister of propaganda claimed that the coalition forces in this region would have been eliminated by this morning, and the Iraqi command ordered to storm the airport. At 10am it was attacked by 3 Republican Guards battalions enforced with militia troops. Americans requested artillery and aviation support. The battle lasted for almost 6 hours. After several unsuccessful attacks Iraqis managed to drive Americans back from the second runway to the airport building. Currently the coalition forces control the building itself and the new runway bordering to it. During the day the foes had to increase their strengths and deploy reinforcements. By the evening up to 2 regular Iraqi brigades and 2 thousand militiamen were fighting for the airport. Americans had to use all available forces of the 3rd Mechanized Division and 101st Airborne Division to repulse the attacks. Only assault aircraft and battle helicopters made more than 300 operation flights to this region.

During the fight Iraqis lost up to 20 tanks, 10 APC, about 200 men killed and up to 300 wounded. The American losses were up to 30 men killed, about 50 wounded, at least 4 tanks, 4 APC and 1 helicopter. But it is impossible to obtain the exact data yet. By this hour there have been more than 20 flights for evacuation of killed and wounded coalition soldiers and the command have requested ambulance aviation again.

The combat was so intense that commander of the 3rd Mechanized Division general-major Bufford Blunt had to issue an order to organize a false strike. Around 8am from Khan-Azad road junction an attack was organized in order to demonstrate tank vanguards of a large subdivision advancing toward Al-Daura from south. The group was able to reach the outskirts of the town near the Avajridge village. After entering the village the group was met by Republican Guards. In direct combat the group lost 2 tanks, 3 APC, 3 men killed, up to 10 wounded and, after two hours of fighting, withdrew to the main forces. Iraqis lost 4 tanks, 2 APC and up to 30 men killed.

By the evening the foes reduced their activity and were regrouping during the last night. Americans are rapidly fortifying their defense positions and deploying reinforcements to the airport region, increasing their forces at Khan-Azad and Abu-Harraib. Iraqis are moving anti-armor divisions closer to the city outskirts.

Despite the exchange of strikes there are no reasons to expect any serious attempts to capture the city in the nearest future. By numerical strength the coalition troops that have reached the city borders do not meet even the minimal requirements for storming and heavy urban fights. Coalition forces by Baghdad number up to 18-20 thousand men and can be enforced with no more than 3-5 thousand men while the minimal force necessary to capture a city like Baghdad equals from 80 to 100 thousand soldiers.

According to weather forecasts, in the coming day the weather may abruptly change to the worse. The wind is expected to intensify, visibility may reduce to 200-300 m.

All the claims made by aviation commander of the coalition, general Michael Mosley, about "?Iraqi army, as an organized structure consisting of large units, exists no longer?" are contrary to fact and, according to analytics, are probably connected with severe pressure put on the military command by American financial groups that desperately needed good news from the US-Iraqi front by the end of the financial week. In fact, the Republican Guards defending Baghdad have not lost even 5% of their numerical strength and military equipment. Most of those losses were due to bombardments and not land combats. The total losses of Iraqi army since the beginning of the war have not exceeded 5-8% of their defensive potential. This means the main battles are still to be seen.

The situation in other sectors of the US-Iraqi front will be summarized closer to this evening.

[ translated by Necroman ]

Ramzaj

negus- well, today's events have proven again why the russian intelligence network experts are looking for new jobs today. care to update all of us on what the russkies are saying now?

sorry i was really busy these two days
this is the last ramzaj message
the source and comments here

RAMZAJ DISCONTINUES OPERATION
08.04.2003 [18:46]


Events of the last 2 days have made further work of Ramzaj group in its current format impossible.

With the embassy personnel and journalists having left Iraq and most of Iraqi information services evacuated from Baghdad, analysis of the situation in Baghdad and Iraq as a whole becomes ineffective.
The quickly changing course of street fights leaves any informational updates far behind. Direct TV broadcasts are far more evident than any analytics.
At the same time, we do not have the right to reveal classified, “top secret” information.
Apart from that, our actions meet increasing opposition from the official quarts and in fact are turning into confrontation the outcome of which is not difficult to forecast.
Therefore we have to discontinue our work and thank everybody for taking part in the project.

In conclusion we would like to say:

All the “updates” came out from a compact group formed a few years ago in the framework of a special service. The group used to work for the government for a long time but all its members have left the service and now act as an independent analytical group that has kept some capabilities. This gives an answer to the most common question – about the sources of our information.

We participated in the ongoing events on a “non-profit” basis and had no object other than to stand the US-British informational blockade of the war in Iraq.

Our updates were not genuine materials from any of Russian or other special services, but rather an “intellectual product” of the group itself, product of its operative, informational and analytical abilities. But compiling the updates we used materials available from our friends from special information structures. The very form “operativnaya informatsiya” never claimed to be “military information updates” but served as additional data for self-dependent analysis.

The main goal of the project was to present intelligible military analytics on the war in Iraq, which is currently missing, to the informational space. We had both success and obvious fails along the way.

We are grateful to the iraqwar.ru and forum.vif2.ru administration that took the risk and burden of working with us and we understand how many problems they have to endure because of that.
With all responsibility we state that no messages, letters, appeals and other materials, apart from the daily “updates” on iraqwar.ru and forum.vif2.ru were made by Ramzaj group and any other statement in our name is nothing but mystification.
The author with the nickname “Kondor” is the only authorized source of information about the group and its “official contact person”. In cases of uncertainty or “nickname cloning” authentication is possible using his personal photo that supplements one of images published on iraqwar.ru and comes as its logical continuation.


With unfailing respect to all of you,

Ramzaj.



[ translated by Necroman ]

negus, that is one of the most ridiculous attempts at spin i've ever seen! why do you even bother reading and posting such nonsense? it's not independent Russian intelligence- it's been Iraqi information ministry posts- what a scam you've run! you should be ashamed!