A Marine from the 2nd Battalion, 8th Regiment, kicks open a door as troops search house by house close to the Euphrates River on the outskirts of the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, where allied troops found some resistance in their northbound advance torwards the Iraqi capital, Baghdad 23 March 2003. US forces skirted the southern city of Nasiriyah after using helicopters and artillery against stubborn Iraqi resistance.