BAGHDAD - Dug in or dispersed on the approaches to Baghdad, the Republican Guard are Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's first line of defence against a looming onslaught from US and British invasion forces.
Commanded by his youngest son Qusay, the 60,000-80,000 men in the six divisions of the Republican Guard are mostly minority Sunni Muslims like Saddam himself and are traditionally the shock troops of his armed forces.
Founded by one of Saddam's predecessors as a presidential protection force, they made their name during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Some military experts say they are fiercely loyal to Iraq but question just how loyal they are to Saddam himself.
The cream of the force is the Special Republican Guard, four more-trusted brigades totalling up to 25,000 men from Saddam's al-Bu Nassir tribe and clans from his home region around Tikrit.
Set up in 1990s and trained in commando tactics and urban warfare, their job is to protect the capital, Baghdad, Saddam's power base around Tikrit, his palaces and other symbols of his rule.
Saddam's last line of defence is likely to be a range of shadowy security services who are bound to him by ties of blood and personal interest and may well opt to fight to the death to protect him.
These include the Special Security Service, a force of 15,000 fiercely loyal fighters whose main job is his personal protection -- and who, some military experts say, control Iraq's chemical weapons arsenal.
The Iraqi army numbers about 350,000 soldiers, the bulk of them conscripts and reserves.
The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies says in its 2002-03 "Military Balance" that most of the army is at 50 per cent combat effectiveness.
The exception, it adds, is the Republican Guard and its three armoured divisions, one mechanised division and two infantry divisions.
Traditionally better supplied, trained and rewarded than other branches of the armed forces, the Republican Guard spearheaded the 1990 invasion and occupation of Kuwait.
In the 1991 Gulf War that followed, some of those Republican Guard units that Saddam sent to the front provided the fiercest resistance to US and allied forces who ejected them from Kuwait. Others pulled back rather than face a mauling.
The force bounced back after the war to crush revolts in the Shi'ite Muslim south and the Kurdish north.
US military planners predict the toughest resistance in the latest war, which began on March 20, will come from the Republican Guard and their 600 or so Soviet-built T-72 tanks.
On March 1, the official Iraqi News Agency said the Republican Guard pledged to fight to the death to protect Saddam, whom the United States and Britain accuse of hiding weapons of mass destruction and have vowed to topple.
"They pledged to the president that they will be the swords that will fight the aggressors and that they are ready to sacrifice to the level of martyrdom to defend their leader, their country and their sanctities," it quoted them as saying.
Military experts say Republican Guard forces were dispersed ahead of the war to reduce the impact of air strikes. It is unclear if they will converge on dug-in positions stocked with ammunition and supplies as the ground battle approaches.
US military planners say the Medina Division of the Republican Guard is barring their route to the capital near Kerbala, 110km southwest of Baghdad.
They say the Baghdad Division of the Republican Guard is barring the road at Kut, 170km southeast of the capital.
Elsewhere, the Al Hamurabi, Adnan and Al Abed divisions of the Republican Guard reportedly have the job of protecting the western and northern approaches to the capital.
- REUTERS
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