U.S. troops have "occupied" the entire city of Fallujah, leading Iraqi officials to declare on Saturday the mission "accomplished." There were no more major concentrations of insurgents still fighting, U.S. military officials said. Artillery and airstrikes also ended at nightfall. U.S. military officials said Saturday that American troops had now "occupied" the entire city of Fallujah and there were no more major concentrations of insurgents still fighting. Artillery and airstrikes also ended after nightfall.
| They seem to be having trouble with that concept of "occupied." |
Iraqi officials acknowledged that the two most wanted figures in the city — Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Sheik Abdullah al-Janabi — had escaped the fighting.
| Ratz. They said the other day Janabi was titzup... |
At least 30 of Zarqawi's lieutenants had been killed, officials told FOX News. But after nearly a week of intense urban combat, U.S. officers said resistance had not been entirely subdued and that it still could take several days of fighting to clear the final pockets. At least 1,200 insurgents have been killed since the battle for Fallujah began four days ago, U.S. military officials estimated.
Officials told FOX News on Saturday they believe about 400 enemy fighters may still be hiding out inside the Sunni Muslim stronghold, with 250 in the south and 150 in the north. Twenty-five American troops were killed and about 170 wounded in the fighting. Officials said seven Iraqi soldiers were also been killed. U.S. Marines rescued two hostages being held captive in an apparent torture chamber, FOX News has learned. Soldiers were led to the chamber by a tip from one of the hostages' relatives and by the hostages' screams.
Iraq's national security adviser Qassem Dawoud said on national television that about 1,000 insurgents had been killed and another 200 captured during the Fallujah operation. "We are just pushing them against the anvil," said Col. Michael Formica, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division's 2nd Brigade. "It's a broad attack against the entire southern front." Marines in northern Fallujah were hunting for about a dozen insurgents dressed in National Guard uniforms after reports they were wandering the city. "Any [Iraqi National Guard] or [Iraqi special forces] not seen with the Marines are to be considered hostile," Lt. Owen Boyce, 24, of Hartford, Conn., told his men.
| That means they'll be shot on site. If they surrender, they can still be shot. |
Overnight, two city mosques were hit by airstrikes after troops reported sniper fire from inside. On Saturday, two Marines were killed by a homemade bomb southeast of Fallujah. As the U.S. Army and Marines attacked inside Fallujah from the north, the Marines' 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion blocked insurgents from fleeing. U.S. officials estimate there are about 1,000-2,000 insurgents in the towns and villages around Fallujah who were not trapped inside the city during the U.S.-Iraqi siege, which began Monday.
| So now they've got to go root them out... |
A U.S. warplane dropped a 500-pound bomb to destroy an insurgent tunnel network in the city, embedded TV correspondent Jane Arraf reported. U.S. officials said they hoped the latest surge would be the final assault on Fallujah, followed by a house-to-house clearing operation to search for boobytraps, weapons and guerrillas hiding in the rubble.
| Beebs would call that a "quagmire." Most green-suiters would call it "mopping up." |
U.S. and Iraqi officials want to restore control of Fallujah and other Sunni militant strongholds before national elections due by Jan. 31. The fierce fighting has taken its toll on the Americans. More than 400 wounded soldiers have been taken to the U.S. military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, a hospital spokeswoman said. A four-vehicle convoy of the Iraqi Red Crescent carrying humanitarian assistance arrived in Fallujah after the Iraqi and American troops allowed them to pass.
| After a thorough search, we hope... |
West of Baghdad on a highway stretching toward Fallujah, U.S. airstrikes and clashes between troops and rebels left four people dead and 29 others wounded, police and hospital officials said. Dawoud estimated that 90 percent of Fallujah's residents evacuated before the assault. With resistance in Fallujah waning, U.S. and Iraqi forces began moving against insurgent sympathizers among Iraq's hardline Sunni religious leadership, arresting at least four clerics and raiding offices of groups opposing the assault.
| It'd be better if they shot the holy men, too... |
Meanwhile, the U.S. military said four American helicopters had been hit by insurgent ground fire in separate attacks near Fallujah. Their uninjured crews returned to base safely. |