Pretty good NYT article
Army tanks and fighting vehicles began blasting their way into the last major rebel stronghold in Falluja at sundown on Saturday after American warplanes and artillery had prepared the way with a savage barrage on the district, called Shuhada. Earlier in the afternoon, 10 separate plumes of smoke rose from southern Falluja, as if etched against the desert sky, and probably exclaiming catastrophe for the insurgents. "It's a broad attack against the entire southern front," said Col. Michael D. Formica, the Army commander in charge of the cordon effort around the city. "We're just pushing them against an anvil."
Mechanized units, mainly M1A2 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, have entered Shuhada with their muzzles blazing, blowing apart buildings, rolling over barriers and confronting insurgents holed up in mosques and other refuges. From the city's southeast perimeter, the sound of heavy artillery and machine-gun fire was almost continuous throughout the afternoon, when M1 tanks and Bradleys could be seen pounding rebel positions near the city's southern end, which the Americans, perhaps led by New Yorkers, refer to as Queens, in keeping with their practice of renaming roads and neighborhoods to make them easier to remember. American artillery could also be heard firing from the outskirts in a sequence - the launch, then a soaring sound and then a dull boom - as the rounds detonated and sent dust up over the skyline. The thump of heavy cannons alternated with the chatter of .50-caliber machine-gun fire and the lighter barking sound of the insurgents' AK-47 rifles in response.
In the general direction of Shuhada, a battle could be seen raging late in the afternoon between an American M1 tank and a group of insurgents holed up in buildings around the minarets of a mosque, about 100 yards away. Muzzle flashes from AK-47 fire could be seen at various points around the minarets. The tank, with its rear less than a block from the desert's edge, repeatedly fired its 120-millimeter cannon at the insurgents, sending a sudden dust cloud into the sky as sections of building's masonry collapsed. American airstrikes continued to pound the insurgents, with the groaning sound of an AC-130 gunship audible from above. The fighting inside Falluja in the afternoon was so intense that stray bullets began to kick up dust several hundred yards outside the city. To the south, tanks and armored vehicles assigned to the Marines' Second Reconnaissance Battalion could be seen waiting, part of the American military cordon that is intended to prevent any insurgents from escaping. Other American vehicles patrolled busily along the highway running north and south along the city's eastern edge. Gazing at the battle through his binoculars, Colonel Formica, the Army commander, said, "We're seeing the completion of the liberation of Falluja." |