PARIS: The chest-thumping fury of the US “shock and awe” assault on Iraq does little to conceal Washington’s preference to destroy the Iraqi leadership with its keyhole bombs before allied troops face the ordeal of urban warfare, experts said here on Friday.

For while the convoys of heavily armed armoured units charge virtually unimpeded into southern Iraq the real test may come when they reach the gates of Baghdad.

“US ground forces now have a firm foothold in the southeast and initially they will advance towards Basra, supplied in men and equipment from the coast and nothing will be able to stop them” from going on to Baghdad, said Pascal Le Pautremat, an author specializing in military strategy.

And allied troop deployment will intensify as American, British and Australian special forces prepare the ground ahead of them by mobilizing the Shia population in the south and the Kurds in the north, said Eric Denece of the French intelligence research centre.

All the experts agree that while the Iraqi army will melt away under the withering onslaught by the allied troops, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein may still be able to spring a few nasty surprises on the invading forces.

“The special Republican Guard is based in Baghdad, and only in Baghdad, and the army has virtually given up the idea of fighting anywhere except in the capital,” a senior French defence ministry official said.

“Saddam Hussein is counting on an urban war, using the mouse-trap technique. He will lure the Americans into the capital and when they are trapped he will unleash his Republican Guard,” he said.

The prospect television images of bodybags lined up as soldiers are sucked into a terrible battle for every street corner of the Iraqi capital will bring back nightmarish memories.

The US experience in Beirut in the early 1980s that included the death of 241 marines in a truck bomb explosion, and in Somalia a decade later when 18 soldiers died in a firefight in the capital Mogadishu are branded onto the American consciousness and they will not relish a repeat in Baghdad.

Although their British allies have experience in urban warfare following their long presence on the streets of Northern Ireland they will not do the job on their own.

“The entire strategy of the Americans will be to avoid getting involved in urban warfare,” the defence official said.

Intelligence sources all suggest the Iraqi army will be quickly defeated in the countryside and that they will make their last stand in the cities.

“The Iraqi regime could try to prolong hostilities in the towns, its only objective being to trap the Americans in urban areas and, if possible, to take the local population hostage,” a French intelligence source said.

One senior French officer suggested the Americans might even put the brake on their massive offensive when the cavalry finally roars to the outskirts of Baghdad.

“If they have been able to damage the vital command centres with their precision bombing they can wait two weeks for the city — which will only resist while Saddam Hussein is alive — falls by itself after an army rebellion or the assassination of key figures,” he said.—AFP