Marines Battle Enemy Fighters in Fallujah
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By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 6, 2004; 10:00 AM
FALLUJAH, WITH THE 1st MARINE EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, April 6--U.S. Marines have established control over a significant portion of the flashpoint city of Fallujah following two days and nights of resistance from insurgents firing from rooftops, windows and doorways at Marine convoys.
The Marines fought their way deep into the city -- the most hostile in Iraq's Sunni triangle -- starting early Monday, taking constant fire as they entered from automatic rifles, mortars and rocket propelled grenades.
Fighting continued Tuesday morning, but the streets were deserted and Marine units were well ensconced in force at two positions, one in the north of the city and one in the southeast.
From these positions, rifle squads on foot have been moving deep into the city, 35 miles west of Baghdad, to suppress resistance, entering homes as necessary to seize weapons.
Four Marines have been killed in combat in or near the city, with at least eight wounded. In turn, they have killed at least ten Iraqi insurgents, according to an estimate by one officer, and taken an estimated 15 to 20 prisoners, some of them foreign fighters.
So far, the Marines have not reported identifying those who killed and mutilated four civilian contractors here last Wednesday.
"We have penetrated deep into Fallujah," said Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. "We are solidly ensconced and my units are stiffening their grip on the area.
"What we're doing now is getting control of parts of the city.
"This is not retribution," Byrne said. "This is not a vendetta. This is about making the city livable so that the people here to not have to live in fear of the thugs taking control of it."
Byrne said the insurgents "we're definitely waiting for us" when they entered the city. "There were men on rooftops shooting at us. . . . We got mortars fired at us all day. Last night we fought for an hour. The night before, for almost four hours.
"All we could do was watch our backs and try to respond," he said.
"For the last two nights we've been fighting," said Capt. Will Dickens. "From just after we got here until sunrise the first day and again today, we've been fighting in the streets," he said.
"Last night we had a real beautiful fight with lots of tracer fire."
Dickens described some of the insurgents as "the equivalent of dope peddlers, just working for the money."
He described others as true believers, "willing to die for their cause. They stand up in the open, fire at you from the hip, and keep firing until they kill or are killed." Dickens said his unit had captured at least eight prisoners.
One Marine said "they shot at us from rooftops. From the streets. They shoot at you and then run and hide wherever they can. I think it's tough here. These people keep asking us why they don't have electricity, don't have water, why nothing is fixed."
Lance Cpl. Jamil Alkattan said that after the firefights, the Marines have been "going into houses to do what we had to do. We kept finding houses with guns in them that were still hot. The people tried to hide the guns or say that they had been sleeping.
"But how could they be sleeping when the sound of gunfire was so loud?"
"I guess God was on our side," during the fighting, he said. "When a mortar comes at you all you can do is pray."
None of the officers was able to provide a good estimate on how many Fallujahns have been killed. They said that most of those shot by the Marines appeared to have been killed immediately and then dragged off by friends or fellow fighters back into homes.
Byrne said the Marines are taking care not to return fire indiscriminately. "We're trying not to alienate people here any further than they already are."
While the Marines are equipped with tanks and assault helicopters, they have not been using artillery. "I've been sending squads of 10 to 13 men on foot in city," said Dickens. "The terrorists seem to like it when we roll around in our vehicles. But the way you win the war on terror is by putting your boots on deck. We don't want the political ramifications of collateral damage. We don't want to kill civilians."
Byrne said there were plans to take Fallujah before the civilian contractors were killed last Wednesday. Those plans, he said, got an extra boost with the four civilian security guards were killed.
"They were horrible murders and mutilations," said Byrne. "They were working as guards for civilians, working to help Iraq. They were tortured. They were burned. they were hung up in pieces, a la Somalia.
"This goes beyond the pale," Byrne said. "We are here to take over from the thugs."
The American Marine Division has the highest combat effectiveness in the American armed forces. It seems not enough for our four divisions to surround and annihilate its two regiments.
---Mao Tse Sung to General Song, prior to Chosin Reservoir
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