Karbala, Iraq: Through the arm of a US soldier wiping sweat off his brow, an Iraqi militia member, bathed in blood, lies on the street moaning after being shot multiple times by advancing American soldiers.

During this first day of urban combat, scores of militiamen were killed. Shrapnel hit a TV cameraman; many US soldiers suffered severe heat exhaustion; others ran out of ammunition. Combat continued from the early morning until the late afternoon in close to ten hours of fighting which ended when a civilian riding a scooter past the area was shot dead.