Eyewitness: Like the day after a hurricane moved across the landscape, a calm normality returned to the Iraqi/Kuwait border yesterday. Jack Fairweather reports from Coalition-controlled Safwan
It was not a scene that anyone would have expected. In border areas of newly liberated southern Iraq a complete calm had descended following Thursday night's intense artillery exchanges between Iraqi and Allied forces.
There were no refugees trying to enter Kuwait or Iraqi army deserters fleeing from the frontline. Instead driving through a breech in the final earthen rampart separating Iraq and Kuwait through which British and American tanks had streamed a few hours before there was a vision of pastoral tranquillity.
Farmers could be seen tending flocks of sheep or tilling the open fields that stretch towards Basra, while beneath the barrels of a row of British Challenger tanks guarding the beachhead, an Iraqi man watered his tomatoes.
Along the road which joins Safwan, the first liberated town in Iraq and Umm Qasr, the port which as of yesterday evening was still an area of heavy fighting, Iraqis drove nonchalantly.
One pick-up truck packed with Iraqis waved two fingers in a victory salute before swerving on the road to avoid a two foot crater where an Allied artillery shell had landed.
The crater was one of the few obvious signs of the pitched battle that had been fought around the town of Safwan in the early hours of Thursday morning.
A few bombed out buildings could be seen, and walls pockmarked with heavy machine-gun fire where US special forces had engaged in a brief ground attack.
The selection of targets appeared to have been specific, and as an indication of just how keen Allied forces are to avoid damaging civilian infrastructure only a single line of tank tracks had left the road to cut away across fields northward.
The Iraqis working around their farms appeared more bewildered than overjoyed by the night's aerial bombardment that had freed them from Saddam's rule.
An Iraqi, whose house stood just opposite the breech in the border wall approached a British unit waving a white flag and offering a box of freshly harvested tomatoes in exchange for water. "I think it was more out of courtesy than because he needed," said one British soldier serving with the tenth platoon of the 1st Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.
But he was very happy that he was no longer under Saddam's rule and said we should go and kill him if we had the chance.
He also said he was delighted to see us British and Americans," the soldier said.
Another Iraqi man, called Falih, whose farm was on the road towards Safwan said: "I like Americans and I like Saddam."
He pointed a thick roll of money and said: "Saddam gave me this. He cannot be all bad. Christians and Muslims must live together."
The soldiers of the Royal Fusiliers, some of the most forward deployment of British troops, appeared relaxed in the presence of their Iraqi neighbours.
Although lines of Challenger tanks stood with their barrels facing northwards and sentries had dug in heavy machine-gun posts, as evening fell, soldiers were lying on the chassis of their tanks exchanging snippets of information about the Allied advance and soccer scores. Sgt Barry Little from Berdlington, Northumberland said: "Its great to finally be here and to have begun the process of regime change but to tell you the truth at the moment we feel more like observers than liberators."
At the border checkpoint, two Kuwaiti soldiers snored loudly on mats outside their vehicle emphasizing the sense that though violent, the Allied storm had well and truly passed.
Towards the town of Safwan there was greater evidence of the fighting in the early hours of yesterday morning. A house had been razed to the ground and in one corner of the town, which lies a few hundred metres from the border with Kuwait, a fire still burned.
According to one officer with the Queen's Dragoon Guards, Safwan hill, the only raised ground for miles around and where a number of Iraqi mortar and artillery positions had been based, "definitely looked a few inches lower", after being repeatedly bombed by US airstrikes.
Yesterday details had begun to emerge of exactly what had happened during the Allies first encounter with the enemy. Following the pre-emptive strike on Baghdad, Iraqi artillery pieces and missile batteries that had moved into southern Iraq earlier in the week began firing sporadically as well as launching five Scud missiles.
As night fell the Allied response came. American divisions began moving into Iraq at 3.00 a.m. from breeches in the western and north-eastern boundary, 3 Commando Brigade with 15 Marine Expeditionary Unit moving towards Umm Qasr and strategic positions towards Basra, 1 Marine Expeditionary Force capturing Rumela oilfield by 12.00 p.m.
They were supported by artillery fire, non-stop waves of Cobra attack helicopters, a series of devastating airstrikes that continued until the early hours of the morning, along with specials forces operations in Safwan and Umm Qasr.
Brig Graham Binns, commander of the 7th armoured brigade, the 1st Royal Regiment of Fusiliers said: "We consider the night's work to have been a great success. Although we've moved slower than expected it is because we have avoided resorting to too many airstrikes in order to protect civilian infrastructure. The Iraqis have so far not show a will to fight except when cornered."
Orders have been given for a decisive strike against Basra in the early hours of the morning, the key to southern Iraq. Early today advancing US troops were already only 10 km from the city.
In contrast to peaceful scenes around Safwan, Umm Qasr was still a town under siege yesterday afternoon.
The masts of its oil export facilities could be glimpsed but the area had been classified "an active warzone," according to one British officer.
"There has been one hell of a lot of shooting going on at Umm Qasr," the officer said, "it's intense and brutal."
The fighting was a reminder that though the Allied war effort has been going to plan, far from deserting in large numbers, some Iraqi forces are resisting.
As one newly-liberated man said yesterday: "Saddam has been our leader for so long that we have forgotten how to disobey orders."