After nearly 16 hours of fighting, the United States marines thought they had finally won their battle for the green-domed mosque, which insurgents had been using as a command center. Then a car drove up behind a group of the marines on Al Thurthar Street. Seven men bristling with Kalashnikovs, rocket-propelled grenades and black ammunition belts spilled onto the street, ready to fight at point-blank range. The marines turned and fired, and killed four of them immediately, blowing one man's head entirely away before he fell on his back onto the pavement, his arms spread wide.
Three more fled. Cpl. Jason Huyghe cornered two of them in a courtyard. One of them, he suddenly realized, was wearing a belt packed with explosives. "I saw the guy roll over and pull something on his jacket," Corporal Huyghe said, "and he exploded." The seventh man limped into the dark streets of the city and escaped.
| "Curly-toed Nikes, don't fail me now!" |
The battle for Falluja does not fall into any neat category, and even the messy label of urban warfare does not capture the intensity and unpredictability of this battlefield. In some places, the insurgents appear to fire and fall back, perhaps trying to tease the marines into ambushes or dissolve into the grimy fabric of the city to fight another day. But elsewhere, they hold their ground until the buildings around them are obliterated, or open fire abruptly from exposed positions and are literally cut to pieces. Nothing here makes sense, but the Americans' superior training and firepower eventually seem to prevail. |