Front Page, Tuesday's Washington Post:

U.S. soldiers attempting to secure a small river town about 50 miles south of Baghdad today fought the first close-up skirmishes with President Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard, elite divisions that U.S. officials said have shifted additional troops southward to bolster Iraqi defenses seeking to repel the 12-day-old American invasion.

The clash involved elements of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division -- the tip of the U.S. invasion force -- and units from the Nebuchadnezzar Division in Hindiyah, a town along the Euphrates River halfway between the cities of Karbala and Hilla, according to the U.S. officials. The fighting, which involved small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and 25mm cannons, did not mark the beginning of a major U.S. push northward, they said, but nevertheless took the 3rd Division troops to the edge of newly reinforced Iraqi defenses arrayed to block the U.S. advance on the capital.

Story added that Iraqi defenses have been shifted to the south due to "confidence" Baghdad will not be attacked from the north.