US Troops Stretched To Limit As Insurgents Fight Back
Robin Gedye / Uruknet.Info, 2004-11-13
November 13, 2004 - Insurgent attacks across Iraq stretched American
forces to their limits yesterday when rebels appeared to be in control
of at least two cities, and the operation in Fallujah entered its most
dangerous phase.
The holy city of Najaf became the seventh city to be placed under a
night-time curfew with insurgents across the Sunni Triangle, the
country's most volatile region, united in their determination to use
the battle for Fallujah as a rallying call to terror.
US Marines fighting with insurgents in the Iraqi city of Fallujah
Despite air strikes on Iraq's main northern city, Mosul, on Thursday
night and claims by US forces that the city was calm, masked gunmen
openly controlled its streets yesterday with eyewitnesses reporting
that neither police nor US forces were to be seen.
Insurgents remained in charge of at least one of the nine police
stations which they had attacked earlier while some police were
reported to have thrown off their uniforms to join the terrorists. A
contingent of US troops was detached from guarding the perimeter of
Fallujah, where the American toll rose to at least 22 dead yesterday
since the operation began, and moved to Mosul in an attempt to
re-impose order.
The city of Ramadi, 35 miles west of Fallujah, also appeared under the
control of rebels who roamed the streets carrying automatic weapons
and rocket launchers.
Other towns under curfew amid growing unrest included Baghdad, Tikrit,
Samarra and Baquba.
An audio tape reportedly made by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has boasted
of responsibility for some of the bloodiest of hostage executions,
reassured the "heroes of Islam in Fallujah" that "God's victory is on
the horizon".
A US Black Hawk helicopter was shot down north of Baghdad and three
crew members were wounded.
US military spokesmen denied that they had lost control of security in
any Iraqi cities although they admitted that while the battle for
Fallujah remained the immediate priority it allowed insurgents to
launch brief and intense assaults elsewhere.
Troops in Fallujah entered the most difficult phase of their operation
last night as they engaged rebels in the southern corner of the city
where al-Zarqawi had his headquarters before fleeing the city ahead of
the US attack.
Several hundred fighters, gradually forced south during the three-day
operation, were said to be trapped against the Euphrates on the west
and a double cordon of US forces along Fallujah's southern perimeter
as soldiers advancing through the city's alleys gradually squeezed
them into an ever-smaller circle.
Some of the toughest street fighting encountered so far erupted during
the day as rebels re-emerged in areas already secured by US marines in
the north of the city.
Gunmen resumed positions on the roofs of mosques which had earlier
been cleared, effectively drawing troops away from the main advance
southwards.
"It's extremely dangerous right now because the insurgents have
nowhere to go. They are just sitting in houses waiting for us to come
in. I'm supposed to shoot into the houses before our troops go in,"
said Marine Cpl Will Porter.
"Some battalions are pushing through the city and others are clearing
it. Battalions like ours are coming from behind, going house-to-house
killing guys," said a US marine, Lt Michael Prato.
As the fighters trapped in the city become increasingly desperate,
there is evidence that they are killing colleagues to prevent them
surrendering.
"Clearly they have been killing some of their own," said Capt Drew
McNulty, whose company had found a rebel body with its feet hacked
off, a teenager with a bullet in his chest and at least five bodies
that were not the victims of US weaponry.
Journalists with the troops speak of a city that is gradually being
devastated. Scarcely a single house does not bear some form of weapons
scar and many have been rendered uninhabitable.
Tactics handed down from years of urban warfare in Israel mean that
troops sometimes search rows of buildings by punching holes through
walls with high velocity bullets rather than moving from house to
house through doors, thus reducing the risk of booby traps and
increasing the element of surprise.
The consequences are that homes are being badly damaged on a routine
basis.
One army unit in Fallujah reported clearing an industrial section of
the city where it found almost every building wired to explode, bomb
factories, anti-tank mines and hundreds of weapons lying around.
The driver of two French hostages kidnapped on Aug 20 during a trip to
Najaf was discovered in handcuffs in the basement of a house, but
there was no sign of journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges
Malbrunot.
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