The Battle of Nasiriyah was fought between the US
2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, aided by the British military, and
Iraqi forces from 23 March to 2 April 2003 during the US-led
invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Ba'athist Iraq, Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one mont ...
. On the night of 24–25 March, the bulk of the Marines of
Regimental Combat Team 1
The 1st Marine Regiment is an infantry regiment of the United States Marine Corps based at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California. The regiment is under the command of the 1st Marine Division and the I Marine Expeditionary Force. The 1s ...
passed through the city over the bridges and attacked north towards Baghdad. However fighting continued in the city until 1 April when Iraqi resistance in the city was defeated.
The battle
Prelude
Nasiriyah
Nasiriyah ( ar, ٱلنَّاصِرِيَّة; United States Board on Geographic Names, BGN: ''An Nāşirīyah''; also spelled ''Nassiriya'' or ''Nasiriya'') is a city in Iraq. It is on the lower Euphrates River, Euphrates, about south-southeas ...
is a city which lies along the banks of the
Euphrates River
The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...
in
Dhi Qar Province
Dhi Qar Governorate ( ar, ذي قار, translit=Thi Qār, ) is a governorate in southern Iraq. The provincial capital is Nasiriyah. Prior to 1976 the governorate was known as Muntafiq Governorate. Thi Qar was the heartland of the ancient Iraqi civ ...
, about southeast of
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
; its population is made up almost entirely of
Shia Muslim
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, most ...
s.
On the morning of 23 March, a US Army supply convoy from the 507th Maintenance Company had mistakenly veered off Highway 8 and then turned toward the city into enemy-held territory. The US vehicles ran into an ambush, drawing enemy fire from every direction. Eleven American soldiers were killed and several were taken prisoner. However, a few soldiers managed to escape the ambush and form a screen around their wounded. They were soon rescued by a company from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade (Task Force Tarawa) under the command of Major William Peeples.
The original plan was for Task Force Tarawa to take and hold the two bridges inside
Nasiriyah
Nasiriyah ( ar, ٱلنَّاصِرِيَّة; United States Board on Geographic Names, BGN: ''An Nāşirīyah''; also spelled ''Nassiriya'' or ''Nasiriya'') is a city in Iraq. It is on the lower Euphrates River, Euphrates, about south-southeas ...
, creating a corridor for the
RCT1 and
6th Engineer Support Battalion
The 6th Engineer Support Battalion (6th ESB or 6th EngSptBn), is an engineering battalion of the United States Marine Corps Reserve. They are headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and they fall under the command of the 4th Marine Logistics Group.
...
from Battle Creek, MI to pass north through the city along Route 7.
Nasiriyah was the headquarters of the Iraqi Army's 3rd Corps, composed of the 11th Infantry Division (ID), 51st Mechanized Infantry Division, and
6th Armored Division
The 6th Armored Division ("Super Sixth") was an armored division of the United States Army during World War II. It was formed with a cadre from the 2nd Armored Division.
History
The division was activated on 15 February 1942 at Fort Knox ...
—all at around 50 percent strength. The 51st operated in the south covering the oilfields, and the 6th was north near
Al Amarah, which left three brigade-sized elements of the 11th ID to guard the An Nasiriyah area.
U.S. Army convoy ambushed
At around 06:00 on the morning of 23 March, an 18-vehicle convoy of 31 soldiers of the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
's
507th Maintenance Company and two soldiers of the 3rd
Forward Support Battalion of the
3rd Infantry Division missed a turn onto Highway 8 and mistakenly continued along Highway 7 into the city. The convoy was led by Captain Troy King, a supply officer with little combat training. Iraqi
technical vehicles began shadowing the convoy as it passed an Iraqi checkpoint near the Euphrates River. After passing the Al-Quds headquarters on the northern outskirts of the city, King realized that he was lost and the convoy began turning around to retrace its steps through the city.
![Type-69](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Type-69.jpg)
As the convoy turned left on to Highway 16. At about 07:00 it began to receive sporadic small arms fire, the source and direction of which could not be determined. The ambush was unlikely to have been set up in advance, because the Iraqis did not know which course the convoy would take. In the resulting chaos, the 507th became divided into three smaller groups as it attempted to move south, out of Nasiriyah.
[ The first element of the convoy (known in the official U.S. Army report as Group 1) made it through unscathed, and continued south to meet up with the Marines. Group 2 also made it through the kill zone, although their vehicles were badly damaged and had to be abandoned. Group 3 encountered road barriers and was defeated.
At least 15 of the 18 American transport vehicles in the convoy, ranging from ]Humvees
The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV; colloquial: Humvee) is a family of light, four-wheel drive, military trucks and utility vehicles produced by AM General. It has largely supplanted the roles previously performed by the or ...
to Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck
The Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT) is an eight-wheel drive, diesel-powered, tactical truck. The M977 HEMTT first entered service in 1982 with the United States Army as a replacement for the M520 Goer, and since that date has re ...
s (HEMTTs), were destroyed by small-arms fire, RPGs RPG may refer to:
Military
* Rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon
**''Ruchnoi Protivotankoviy Granatomyot'' (Russian: ''Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт''), hand-held anti-tank grenade launc ...
, mortar rounds, and tank gunfire. Some of them swerved off the road or crashed while attempting to avoid incoming Iraqi fire. One truck was crushed by the traversing 105 mm gun barrel of a Type 69-QM tank. At 07:30, King's three remaining vehicles made contact with the tanks of Major Bill Peeples' Alpha Company, 8th Tank Battalion on Highway 7, about south of Nasiriyah. On their approach to the city, one of Peeples' tankers noticed American vehicles in the road ahead. Peeples ordered his tanks forward to rescue as many soldiers as possible. They rolled up on ten survivors from Group 2 which had also managed to escape the ambush and set up a hasty perimeter about south of the city.
In total, 11 soldiers from the 507th had been killed, while six others were captured, including Private First Class Jessica Lynch
Jessica Dawn Lynch (born April 26, 1983) is an American teacher, actress, and former United States Army soldier who served in the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a private first class.
On March 23, 2003, she was serving as a unit supply specialist w ...
, Specialist Shoshana Johnson
Shoshana Nyree Johnson (born January 18, 1973) is a Panamanian-born former United States soldier, and the first black female prisoner of war in the military history of the United States. Johnson was a Specialist of the U.S. Army 507th Mainten ...
and Private First Class Lori Piestewa
Lori Ann Piestewa ( ; December 14, 1979 – March 23, 2003) was a United States Army soldier killed during the Iraq War. A member of the Quartermaster Corps, she died in the same Iraqi attack in which fellow soldiers Shoshana Johnson and Piestewa' ...
. Piestewa died of her wounds soon afterward. After a delay, the Marines of 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines (part of 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade), attacked Nasiriyah from the south, using amphibious assault vehicles (AAVs) and Cobra gunships. During this action, the Marines captured two bridges spanning the Euphrates River that were defended by Fedayeen and Ba'ath Party guerrilla soldiers. In heavy fighting, several Iraqi platoon-sized units, two ZSU-23-4
The ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" is a lightly armored Soviet self-propelled, radar-guided anti-aircraft weapon system ( SPAAG).
Etymology
The acronym "ZSU" stands for ''Zenitnaya Samokhodnaya Ustanovka'' (russian: Зенитная Самоходная Ус ...
"Shilka" anti-aircraft weapons and several mortar and artillery positions were destroyed by a combined force of M1 Abrams
The M1 Abrams is a third-generation American main battle tank designed by Chrysler Defense (now General Dynamics Land Systems) and named for General Creighton Abrams. Conceived for modern armored ground warfare and now one of the heaviest ta ...
tanks, Cobra helicopter gunships, and the artillery of 1st Battalion, 10th Marines.
Ambush Alley
The bloodiest day of the operations for the Marines was 23 March, when 18 men of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, were killed and eight Amphibious Assault Vehicle
The Assault Amphibious Vehicle (AAV)—official designation AAVP-7A1 (formerly known as Landing Vehicle, Tracked, Personnel-7 abbr. LVTP-7)—is a fully tracked amphibious landing vehicle manufactured by U.S. Combat Systems (previously by Unit ...
s were disabled in heavy fighting with Iraqi forces around the Saddam Canal. The Marines were engaged by RPGs, mortar, and artillery fire, as well as four Iraqi tanks hidden behind a building.
A friendly-fire incident occurred when two A-10s from the Pennsylvania Air National Guard
The Pennsylvania Air National Guard (PA ANG) is the aerial militia of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States of America. It is, along with the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, an element of the Pennsylvania National Guard.
As commonw ...
strafed the amphibious assault vehicles of Charlie Company by mistake, killing at least one Marine, and possibly as many as 17 Marines, over the course of multiple passes.
The A-10 strike was cleared by the battalion's forward air controller
Forward air control is the provision of guidance to close air support (CAS) aircraft intended to ensure that their attack hits the intended target and does not injure friendly troops. This task is carried out by a forward air controller (FAC).
...
, who was with Bravo Company, bogged down on the eastern outskirts of the city. He did not have contact with Charlie Company and was unaware that Marines were so far north. An investigation into the friendly-fire episode confirmed that friendly-fire was to blame, but "like most friendly-fire investigations, it was done... with no enthusiasm for determining what really happened, or who should be held accountable." Videotapes from the A-10 planes went missing. Despite the clear findings, the U.S. Central Command
The United States Central Command (USCENTCOM or CENTCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the U.S. Department of Defense. It was established in 1983, taking over the previous responsibilities of the Rapid Deployment Joint Tas ...
issued a press release which both minimized certainty and the role of friendly-fire.
Two other Marines, from the 6th Engineer Support Battalion, Corporal Evans James and Sgt. Bradley S. Korthaus drowned while trying to cross the Saddam Canal under fire the following day. Sgt. Michael E. Bitz, from the Marine Air Control Group 28, died from hostile fire while tending to wounded Marines.
RCT-1 pushes through Ambush Alley
The advance of Regimental Combat Team 1 (RCT-1) through Nasiriyah was delayed by fighting there. On the evening of 24 March, LAVs of the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (2nd LAR, commanded by Lt. Col. Eddie Ray) pushed north of the Saddam Canal, leading RCT-1 through Ambush Alley.
Meanwhile, the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines (the "Thundering Third", commanded by Lt. Col. Craparotta) held open Ambush Alley as the rest of RCT-1 passed through Nasiriyah on the night of 24–25 March.
Partly as a result of RCT-1's delay, Colonel Joe Dowdy was later relieved of command of RCT-1.
Aftermath
By 27 March, most Iraqi resistance in the city had been subdued and the focus of the battle shifted from full combat to cordon-and-search operations. Small groups of Fedayeen Saddam
Fedayeen Saddam () was a paramilitary Fedayeen organization loyal to the Ba'athist Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. The name was chosen to mean "Saddam's Men of Sacrifice". At its height, the group had 30,000–40,000 members.
Irregular force ...
militia were hiding throughout the city and launched sporadic attacks on Marine patrols with small arms and RPGs. These attacks were uncoordinated and the resulting firefights were lop-sided, with large numbers of militiamen killed.
On the morning of 27 March, two recon Marines found a sunken M1A1 tank at the bottom of the river. The tank had been missing since the night of 24–25 March. It had apparently plunged into the river when it drove through a gap where a sidewalk was under construction, causing the exposed reinforcing bar to crumble under the weight. The entire four-man crew died. Navy Seabee
United States Naval Construction Battalions, better known as the Navy Seabees, form the U.S. Naval Construction Force (NCF). The Seabee nickname is a heterograph of the initial letters "CB" from the words "Construction Battalion". Depending upon ...
divers from Underwater Construction Team TWO, part of Task Force MIKE along with Marines from 1st Tank Battalion, spent two days retrieving the flooded tank and the bodies of the four crewmen that were found inside.
According to a captain
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
in the Republican Guard
A republican guard, sometimes called a national guard, is a state organization of a country (often a republic, hence the name ''Republican'') which typically serves to protect the head of state and the government, and thus is often synonymous wit ...
, morale among Republican Guard units was bolstered by the resistance offered by the regular army's 45th brigade in the city.
Iraqi casualties were 359–431 dead. More than 300 were wounded and 1,000 captured. US losses were 32 dead, 60 wounded, and six captured.
Private First Class Jessica Lynch
Initial reporting of the battle emphasized the supposed heroism of Private First Class Jessica Lynch
Jessica Dawn Lynch (born April 26, 1983) is an American teacher, actress, and former United States Army soldier who served in the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a private first class.
On March 23, 2003, she was serving as a unit supply specialist w ...
. On 3 April, ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' ran a front-page story which read: "Lynch, a 19-year-old supply clerk, continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds and watched several other soldiers in her unit die around her". ''The Post'' quoted an unnamed official who said "She was fighting to the death ..She did not want to be taken alive."
This description soon was questioned. On 4 April, the Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
ran a story which stated that Lynch's father had heard from the doctors attending her, who said that "she had not been shot or stabbed during her ordeal." On 15 April, the ''Post'' ran a story questioning the accuracy of its own account from 3 April, saying "Lynch's story is far more complex and different than those initial reports ..She was neither shot nor stabbed."[
On 24 April, Private Lynch testified before Congress. She called the earlier reports a "lie", and said that she had in fact never fired her weapon, because she was knocked unconscious when her vehicle crashed. ]Jon Krakauer
Jon Krakauer (born April 12, 1954) is an American writer and mountaineer. He is the author of bestselling non-fiction books—'' Into the Wild''; ''Into Thin Air''; ''Under the Banner of Heaven''; and '' Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat ...
concludes that "most of the details of Lynch's ordeal were extravagantly embellished, and much of the rest was invented from whole cloth... and erefed to gullible reporters by anonymous military sources". Krakauer concludes that Jim Wilkinson was likely part of a White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
-led effort to fabricate Lynch's story.
Participating units
U.S. military
* 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade
**Regimental Combat Team 2
The 2nd Marine Regiment is an infantry regiment of the United States Marine Corps. They are based at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and fall under the command of the 2nd Marine Division and the II Marine Expeditionary Force.
C ...
*** 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines
*** 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines
*** 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines
***2nd Battalion, 8th Marines
2nd Battalion, 8th Marines (2/8) is an infantry battalion in the United States Marine Corps based out of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina consisting of approximately 900 Marines and Sailors. Nicknamed "America's Battalion," they f ...
*** 1st Battalion, 10th Marines
* 1st Marine Division
**Regimental Combat Team 1
The 1st Marine Regiment is an infantry regiment of the United States Marine Corps based at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California. The regiment is under the command of the 1st Marine Division and the I Marine Expeditionary Force. The 1s ...
***3rd Battalion, 1st Marines
3rd Battalion 1st Marines (3/1) is an infantry battalion in the United States Marine Corps based out of Camp Horno on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California. Nicknamed the "Thundering Third", the battalion consists of approximately 1,220 ...
***1st Battalion, 4th Marines
1st Battalion, 4th Marines (1/4) is an infantry battalion in the United States Marine Corps based out of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California consisting of approximately 800 Marines and sailors. They fall under the command of the 1st M ...
*** 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marines
*** 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion
British Army
*G Parachute Battery, 7th Parachute Regiment RHA
7 (seven) is the natural number following 6 and preceding 8. It is the only prime number preceding a cube.
As an early prime number in the series of positive integers, the number seven has greatly symbolic associations in religion, mythology, s ...
Ba'athist Iraqi forces
*Iraqi Army 11th Division
**23rd Brigade
**45th Brigade
**47th Brigade
**21st Tank Regiment (elements)
**Unidentified Commando battalion
*Fedayeen Saddam
Fedayeen Saddam () was a paramilitary Fedayeen organization loyal to the Ba'athist Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. The name was chosen to mean "Saddam's Men of Sacrifice". At its height, the group had 30,000–40,000 members.
Irregular force ...
paramilitary forces[Lowry, p.43]
*Al Quds Army
In popular culture
* The Battle of Nasiriyah is featured in the 2008 HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
miniseries
A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format h ...
''Generation Kill
''Generation Kill'' is a 2004 book written by ''Rolling Stone'' journalist Evan Wright chronicling his experience as an embedded reporter with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion of the United States Marine Corps, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. ...
'', in episode 2, "The Cradle of Civilization".
* The ambush of the 507th Maintenance Company was re-created at the beginning of the 2003 NBC television film '' Saving Jessica Lynch''. The ongoing Battle of Nasiriyah is the backdrop for the rest of the events of the film.
* Much of playwright and Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...
veteran Sean Huze
Sean Huze (born January 18, 1975) is an American actor, screenwriter and playwright.
Early life
Huze was born in Greenwood, Mississippi and grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He moved to Los Angeles, California in 1999 to pursue a career as an a ...
's play The Sandstorm draws on his experiences and those of his comrades during and immediately following their unit's ( 2nd LAR) involvement in the Battle of Nasiriyah.
* The Battle of Nasiriyah was cited as a major factor in a Marine's PTSD in episode 2 of the 2010 PBS series This Emotional Life.
See also
* Justin LeHew – One of the most highly decorated U.S. military personnel serving in the War on Terror
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international Counterterrorism, counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campa ...
. Recipient of the Navy Cross
The Navy Cross is the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps' second-highest military decoration awarded for sailors and marines who distinguish themselves for extraordinary heroism in combat with an armed enemy force. The medal is eq ...
for his action during the Battle of Nasiriyah in 2003. Recipient of the Bronze Star Medal
The Bronze Star Medal (BSM) is a United States Armed Forces decoration awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for either heroic achievement, heroic service, meritorious achievement, or meritorious service in a combat zone.
Wh ...
with Valor device
Valor, valour, or valorous may mean:
* Courage, a similar meaning
* Virtue ethics, roughly "courage in defense of a noble cause"
Entertainment
* Valor (band), a Christian gospel music group
* Valor Kand, a member of the band Christian Death
* ' ...
for his actions during the Battle of Najaf in 2004.
* Luis Fonseca – A United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
Hospital Corpsman
A hospital corpsman (HM r corpsman is an enlisted medical specialist of the United States Navy, who may also serve in a U.S. Marine Corps unit. The corresponding rating within the United States Coast Guard is health services technician (HS) ...
, who was awarded the Navy Cross
The Navy Cross is the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps' second-highest military decoration awarded for sailors and marines who distinguish themselves for extraordinary heroism in combat with an armed enemy force. The medal is eq ...
for his actions during the battle.
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nasiriyah
Battles of the Iraq War in 2003
Battles of the Iraq War involving the United States
Battles of the Iraq War involving Iraq
United States Marine Corps in the Iraq War
Battles involving the United Kingdom
Friendly fire incidents
March 2003 events in Iraq