Russia GRU intel updates

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[b]Russian Military Intel update: War in Iraq, April 6 (morning)[/b]

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 ]

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

Around Baghdad skirmishes between coalition forces and Iraqi divisions are going on. As we said before, during the next two days the coalition troops will extend the zone of blockade to the west and north-west using local strikes. Currently a part of the 1st brigade of the 3rd Mechanized Division is outflanking the city from Abu-Harraib, trying to reach the south outskirts and seize a strategic bridge across the Tigris at the north of the Tunis area (Salakh-Khasan).

Fire has not stopped near the Airport, both sides are using artillery. According to the most recent data the rush of the coalition forces toward to the southern borders of Baghdad, though expected by the Iraqi command, was tactically surprise. Hidden in the interiors of the city, parts of the Iraqi army were unable to leave their covered positions, advance and face the enemy. There arouse confusion that led to disorganization of the Iraqi squadrons that engaged their rivals “on the move”, without proper reconnaissance and concentration of forces. According to specified information in different conflicts and during the assault of the airport up to 400 Iraqi soldiers were killed, 25 tanks and 12 guns were lost.

But the coalition command also faced serious problems. Powerful Iraqi attacks aimed at the airport immobilized most of the force breaking towards Baghdad and it turned out necessary to bring reinforcements from other sectors of the front in order to succeed. In particular, up to 2 battalions of the 101st Airborne Division located by An-Nasiriya and An-Najaf and at least 1 battalion of the 82nd Division were moved there. Americans tolls at the south and south-east of Baghdad for the last 24 hours amount to: up to 30 men killed and at least 80 wounded, 15 soldiers are known to be missing. The Americans lost at least 8 tanks and 5 APC.

Marine squadrons are still incapable of breaking down defenses by the Diyala river. Currently the vanguards are trying to outflank the city from east and seize the bridge in the New Baghdad region.
There are not enough coalition forces to block such a city, and the troops blocking An-Nasiriya, An-Najaf, Al-Kut and Al-Diwaniya were given categorical orders to break down the Iraqi resistance in the next 3 days, take control of those areas and advance toward Baghdad to join the blockade.

To organize offensive against Karbala the blocking troops were enforced with one expeditionary marine squadron, and another storm started this morning. There is no information about casualties from this region yet.
Analogous tasks were set before the British command at the south of Iraq near Basra.
For the past 2 days the British have tried to overcome Iraqi defenses from An-Zubair and the Manavi regions 3 times, but they still cannot break down the resistance. This morning an armored column was able to come up to a strategic cross-road near Akhavat-Rezan, but got under heavy fire and had to retreat.
Yesterday and during this morning the British lost at least 3 armored units, 2 men killed and 6 wounded.

The coalition command and the foreign policy departments of Russia and USA are now making every effort to close all the information related to the Russian embassy getting fired near Baghdad.

Sources claim that the embassy ceased its activities in many respects because of the danger of an air strike on the embassy. The American command was utterly irritated by the presence of the Russian embassy in Baghdad and believed that some technical intelligence equipment was deployed there that provided the Iraqis with information. Moreover, some officers in the coalition HQ in Qatar openly claimed that it was on the territory of the Russian embassy that the “jammers” hampering the high-precision weapons around Baghdad were operated.
Yesterday morning the Secretary of State Colin Powell demanded of immediate evacuation of the embassy from the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov. Yesterday evening the Russian minister informed the Americans that on the 6th of April the embassy column would be leaving Baghdad heading for the Syrian border. This gave rise to dissatisfaction among the State Department officials who suggested that the column should move to Jordan.

The coalition special operations HQ were sure that the embassy column would contain secret devices taken from military equipment captured by Iraqis. In this connection one cannot shut out the possibility of “revenge” from the coalition command.
Moreover, experts claim that the purpose of this armed assault could be to damage a few cars where the Russians would have to leave some of the salvage. This is also indicated by the fact that neither the ambassador himself nor journalists in the column were among the injured. In this case we can expect that this action was committed by coalition special forces and the column was shot using Russian-made weapons to conceal the origin of the attackers to blame the Iraqis afterwards.
According to the most recent data the column got ambushed almost 30 km to the west from the city on the territory occupied by the coalition, but moving fast it escaped from fire and made a few more kilometers where it was blocked by military jeeps. On attempting to establish contact with their crews it received fire again, then the jeeps vanished.

Today at 5pm a phone conversation between president of Russia Vladimir Putin and president of the USA George W. Bush took place. Before this conversation, his assistant for National Security Affairs Condoleezza Rice, who came into Moscow today, had consulted Bush. At this time Rice is meeting Igor Ivanov, the head of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The details of this meeting are unknown so far, but we can suppose that very soon some “unknown squadrons” will be made responsible for the incident and the situation will be dampened to the maximum.
Analysts reckon that the situation with the nuclear submarine “Kursk”, when a whole series of private contacts between top Russian officials and American representatives brought more questions than answers, is about to occur again to some extent.

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There is really on one source of reliable information on this war - and it's coming from Russian spies

Every day, as the war rages, there are winners and losers. Not just on the battlefield, but in the stock market. The indexes and the exchange rates swing wildly as euphoric Pentagon briefings ("Basra is Ours!", "Victory in Days!") turn sour.

GRU is the most sophisticated agency of its kind in the world. And, since Glasnost, the most transparent. GRU has thousands of agents worldwide (especially in countries such as Iraq, where Russia has traditional trade links). Intelligence has always been a top priority for Ivan. The number of agents operated by the GRU during the Soviet era was six times the number of agents operated by the KGB.

Russia, superpower that it was, still has spy satellites, state-of-the-art interception technology and (unlike the CIA) men on the ground. The beauty of GRU is that it does not (like the CIA) report directly to the leadership but to the Russian ministry of defence. In its wisdom, it makes its analyses publicly available. These are digested as daily bulletins on www.iraqwar.ru.

The Russians have a contrarian view on the current conflict. What was it Kissinger said about the Iran-Iraq war - "Ideally we'd like both sides to lose"? That's what the Kremlin thinks about Operation Free Iraq.

From its neutral stance, GRU offers detailed, top-grade, and wholly unspun analysis. The bulletins are in Russian (bilingualism is suddenly in demand on Wall Street). You can get English translations a day later on Venik's Aviation website (www.aeronautics.ru).

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From south-east the American marine units that had repeatedly tried to seize a strategic bridge across the Diyala, as we assumed before, during the night advanced to the eastern suburbs of the New Baghdad and by the morning tried to take over bridges near the “Rashid” airport. In this violent conflict the bridges were destroyed by the Iraqi artillery and the marines sustained losses. According to intercepted radio communications up to 5 marines were killed, at least 12 wounded. 3 APC and 1 tank were destroyed.

Last night on the right bank of the Tigris in the Al-Mansur region American commandos numbering up to 200 men landed in a block of government buildings. Apart from that, fighting squadrons landed on two government residences in this region. The goal of the operation was to capture top officials of Saddam Hussein’s administration. Almost immediately the airdrop was detected and engaged. In order to unblock the commandos at 7am an enforced tank battalion from the 1st brigade of the 3rd Mechanized Division entered the city and after a two-hour fight was able to break to the Haifa street along the Kadissiya roadway and partly reached the bank of the Tigris. This movement turned out unexpected by the Iraqis and met no resistance at first. But in the region of the government quay the American forces confronted with organized Iraqi defenses. After 3 hours of battle the commandos got to the American positions and the whole column fell back from the city.
The American losses total up to 10 men killed, 20 wounded and 10 missing. Up to 3 tanks and 3 APC were destroyed.
The commandos only examined a few government buildings in a hurry. All of them were found empty and no captives were taken.
The tolls of the Iraqi side during the day were up to 150 men killed and about 200 wounded. They lost up to 5 tanks and 8 guns.

By the afternoon Iraqi actions became more confident.
There is information that one of yesterday’s air strikes severely damaged one of their communication and control centers and currently the Iraqi command has to control their units using VHF-stations and envoys which delays battle-orders and commands.
Today the American command had to admit that the fighting potential of Baghdad defenders is “fairly high” and the rivals show no sign of demoralization.

Full update will be published tonight.

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Russian Military intel update: April 7 (continued)

By this evening the situation on the US-Iraqi front in the environs of Baghdad has become less tense. All the American units have returned to their initial positions corresponding to the morning of April 7th. Currently artillery and aviation occasionally open fire at the city. The details of today’s raid of the 1st tank brigade of the 3rd Mechanized Division column to the central district of Baghdad are now available. Radio surveillance data allow us to contend that it was a joint action of the American Special Forces and the army command. Having penetrated into Baghdad a few days before the commandos after reconnaissance concentrated near several government buildings and got ready for a storm.

At the same time from the Khan-Azad region towards Al-Rashid along the Kadissiya roadway advanced a mechanized unit of the 3rd Division consisting of one tank battalion and one motorized infantry battalion (up to 70 tanks and 60 armored personnel carriers). No sooner had the column reached the outskirts of the city, at the rear of the Iraqis the commandos started to storm the target objects – two government buildings and the building of the Ministry of Information, the waiting room of the Security Service and the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iraq. The main objective was to find an entrance to the government underground shelter system and capture high-ranking Iraqi officials. Without combat the commandos were able to seize the Al-Shihud palace and the Republican palace, which were guarded by small patrols only. The palaces turned out empty, and their examination did not reveal any underground shelters. Soon after the palaces had been captured a column of the 1st brigade moved into this region and stood guard over.

But when attempting to storm the government offices the commandos were sighted, blocked and engaged by the guardians. In order to help the commandos a mixed battalion group that had managed to break to the quay of the Tigris moved forward but was stopped by an anti-tank artillery barrage and got ambushed by RPG soldiers. During that almost two-hour battle the Americans lost up to 5 APC and 2 tanks. At least 8 solders were killed and more than 20 wounded. By 3pm the remains of the commando assault groups forced their way to the American positions and at 15:30 their common withdrawal began. At 5pm the American troops left the city.
The exact casualties of the American Special Forces remain unclear. According to communications between American commanders the status of least 15 men is unknown. Whether they are dead, captured or hiding in the city is still obscure.
It was reported that the commandos captured a high officer but during the rush he was killed and left in the city.

The American command criticized the raid. General Tommy Franks who came to the airport region called the level of the casualties during this local operation “unacceptable” and the results “paltry”. Yet it was noted that the Iraqi command reacted on bringing the forces into Baghdad “with an inexplicable delay” and the actions of the counter-attacking Iraqi units “uncoordinated”. American commanders believe that it happened due to “severe malfunction of the whole communication and control system”. It is still unclear what damaged Iraqi communications. According to some data most of the high command left the city after it had been blocked and moved to a reserve command center located in the northern regions of Iraq while the local command remaining in the city has not taken control over the situation yet.
Some officers in the coalition HQ presume that if this is the case then even storming Baghdad will not finish this war and a “campaign to the north”, where quite an effective and large group of Iraqi troops remains, might be necessary.

During this day the British forces of the 7th armored brigade and the 3rd marine brigade have been assaulting Basra. After a nine-hour battle the British have managed to occupy the districts of the “New Basra” Subhay and Ahavat-Rezan and advanced into the “Old Basra” towards the Presidential residence, but still cannot take control of the old districts. The Al-Ashar and Akina regions as well as a part of the Al-Arab quay remain in Iraqi hands and the British command admits that it will be very difficult to occupy them since armored units cannot move down narrow streets.
The total losses of the British in this region amount to at least 7 killed and 15 wounded. A tank and 2 APC were destroyed. The Iraqis lost up to 100 men killed, about 50 captured, 3 tanks and 6 guns. The British estimate the number of defenders in the old districts to be 500 Iraqi militiamen and soldiers of the 51st Infantry Division supported by at least 10 tanks, 12 guns and a lot of portable antitank launchers.

This morning the coalition troops captured Karbala. According to its citizens most of the Iraqi units that were defendeding the town during the evening-night of April 6th left it and moved north. Just a few home guard units remaining in the town ceased their resistance and mixed with the local population. A captured RG officer said that the order to leave the town was received in the morning of April 6th personally from Saddam Hussein after the general HQ obtained information about the American artillery barrage that resulted in a few shells dropped near one of the main Moslem sacred places, the grave of Hussein ibn-Ali. So as not to insult the Shia population of Karbala by the possible destruction of the sacred place the order to leave the town was issued. Currently the Americans are trying to reveal and “clean off” “Saddam’s agents”.

Reports about taking over the Al-Khindiya town after the ten-day storm are also coming. The town of 30 thousand people was in turn assaulted by an Expeditionary Marine unit and later a brigade of the 101st Airborne Division. After occupation of the town and interrogation of captives it was discovered that the whole garrison of Al-Khindiya consisted of 3 RG companies and 1 militia squadron, about 500 soldiers altogether. More than 200 defenders of the town were killed, about 100 captured. In battles of Al-Khindiya the Americans lost up to 15 men killed, at least 40 wounded. 10 armored vehicles were destroyed. By evidence of a “Red Crescent” representative who came there yesterday, even seriously wounded soldiers incapable of walking were taken to the prisoner-of-war camp. Arrests of citizens suspected in resistance are now taking place in the town.

An-Nasiriya, An-Najaf, Al-Kut, Ad-Divaniya and some more small towns on the south of Iraq remain under Iraqis’ control. Only yesterday the Americans lost up to 5 armored vehicles, at least 3 men killed and 10 wounded. Today near An-Nasiriya a rear American column got ambushed. The casualties are unknown so far, but judging from the immediate takeoff of aviation cover and helicopters with an airborne unblocking group the battle is not in favor of the column.

All the information the Russian side has about the fire opened at the Russian embassy column indicate that shooting at the diplomats and journalists was not an accidental event but rather a planned action of frightening and retribution.
This version is also supposed by several today’s attempts of Americans to stop the column on its route and carefully examine the diplomats’ cars and accompanied baggage. The Russian Foreign Ministry and the high-ranking officials keep silent. On the meeting of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin and the National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice they agreed “to forget about this regrettable indicent” and “prevent any impact on the Russian-American partnership”…

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This morning battles in Baghdad resumed. The US marine units at 7am managed to break to the right bank of the Diyala near Al-Jassir, and at 8am advanced to the left bank of the Tigris in the Bessaf district, on the junction of streets Abu-Nuvas and Al-Rashid. Currently up to one battalion have got over the bridges opposite to the Ministry of Information and TV center and are now assaulting those buildings.

According to specified data, after yesterday’s raid into Baghdad up to two companies of Americans fortified in the Al-Shihud palace, which was attacked by Republican Guard troops this morning. The coming reports indicate that the American command is trying to take control of the administrative center of Baghdad whereupon proclaim to have practically captured the city.

From the northern district As-Sulaija toward the city center battalions of the 3rd Mechanized Division are moving. As early as by 5pm they can reach the Abbasid Palace and split Baghdad along the Tigris. The right-bank part of the city is also under threat of a split along the Mansur roadway line.

Information on casualties is quite desultory so far. By now, only the loss of 2 marines during the storm of the bridge across the Diyala and 1 tank destroyed by the Ministry of Information has been verified.
The battle of Baghdad has broken into multiple skirmishes and therefore the casualties sustained by both sides will only be specified along toward evening.

According to reports by American commanders the resistance of the Iraqis does not make an impression of them acting under a united organized command and looks more like operations of autonomous groups.
Moreover, the Americans note very limited use of Iraqi tanks and artillery. There are almost no serious artificial obstacles and strong points prepared for a long defense. This does not give grounds to consider Baghdad prepared for a long siege. And, under such level of resistance the battles for Baghdad may end in 5-7 days.
But in spite of certain success, the US forces are still unable to break the Iraqi opposition. Even units fortified at the outskirts are being attacked and are constantly receiving fire.

It is still unknown where the top political and military Iraqi leaders are. Out of the high-ranked officials only the Minister of Information Mohammad Saed Sahaf is certainly present in the city.

According to arriving information, at about 11am an American helicopter was shot down over the southern suburb of Baghdad.
The US command has confirmed their loss of a heavy attack plane A-10 at Baghdad.

This morning in Basra marine units began to "clean up" the old city blocks where remains of the Iraqi garrison held the line yesterday. Currently, according to the first reports, the advancing marines do not face any resistance and there is a high probability of the Iraqis having abandoned their positions and left the city or mixed with Basra citizens when darkness fell.

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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,

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