BATTLE LINES.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)

Marines Receive Warm Welcome

In Shatra, hundreds of Iraqis shouting "Welcome to Iraq" greeted Marines who entered the town Monday after storming it with planes, tanks and helicopter gunships. A foot patrol picked its way through the small southern town, 20 miles north of the city of Nassiriya, after being beckoned in by a crowd of people.

Why More Aren't Warmly Greeted

Essam al-Ghalib of Saudi Arabia's English Arab News has a clue. In Safwan, an Iraqi town at the Kuwaiti border, Iraqi men, women and children played it up for TV: "With our blood, with our souls, we will die for you Saddam." Then a young man told Al-Ghalib: "There are people from Baath here reporting everything that goes on. If the Americans were to withdraw and everything were to return to the way it was before , we want to make sure that we survive the massacre that would follow."

U.S. Afghan Forces Under Fire

Rebels fired more than a dozen rockets and mortar shells at U.S. military positions in eastern Afghanistan, prompting an air bombing that left at least two attackers dead. No U.S. soldiers were injured, Col. Roger King told reporters at Bagram Air Base, the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition north of Kabul. The attacks on Sunday came a day after an ambush in southern Helmand Province killed two U.S. servicemen.

NBC Severs Ties With Peter Arnett