RFE/RL correspondent Ron Synovitz is embedded with a unit of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division currently outside Najaf, a city in central Iraq now encircled by U.S. troops following 36 hours of heavy fighting. He reports that U.S. troops are encountering an unanticipated, and formidable, weapon in the Iraqi arsenal -- Russian-built Kornet antitank missiles.
Iraqi commandos traveling in three-man teams dressed in black civilian robes and riding in Nissan pickup trucks have been moving against the flanks of columns of armor from the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division and launching broadside attacks from several kilometers away using the system. Those attacks have already disabled at least two Abrahms tanks and one Bradley armored troop carrier.
