NYT: G.I.'s Open Attack to Take Falluja From Iraq Rebels

FALLUJA, Iraq, Monday, Nov. 8 - Explosions and heavy gunfire thundered across Falluja on Sunday night and Monday morning as American troops seized control of two strategic bridges, a hospital and other objectives in the first stage of a long-expected invasion of the city, the center of the Iraqi insurgency.

Hours earlier, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, faced with an expanding outbreak of insurgent violence across the country, formally proclaimed a state of emergency for 60 days across most of Iraq. The proclamation gave him broad powers that allow him to impose curfews, order house-to-house searches and detain suspected criminals and insurgents.

The first of several thousand marines in tanks, Humvees and armored personnel carriers began taking up positions on Monday morning along the northern edge of the city to prepare for an attack, and American jets began bombing targets.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 American soldiers and marines backed by newly trained Iraqi forces were besieging Falluja for what American commanders said was likely to be a brutal, block-by-block battle to retake control and capture, kill or disperse an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 hard-core insurgent fighters. The battle could prove the most important since the American invasion of Iraq 19 months ago.

Troops were on the move by 9 p.m. Sunday to the west and south of Falluja, just across the Euphrates River. After two hours of steady pounding by American guns, tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and AC-130 gunships, at least one objective - a hospital about half a mile west of downtown Falluja - was secured by American Special Forces and the Iraqi 36th Commando Battalion.

Tracer fire lighted up the sky as the operation began, helicopters crisscrossed the battlefield, and at least one American vehicle was fired upon with a rocket-propelled grenade as American and Iraqi forces converged on Falluja General Hospital. Shortly before midnight, American forces were exchanging gunfire across a bridge near the hospital with several insurgent positions on the other side.

"There has been extensive gunfire going across the river," said the American commander of the Special Forces operation at the hospital. "Bradleys have been shooting over to the east of us, and there has been extensive machine gun fire to the southwest of us."

As that firefight raged, extensive airstrikes and artillery fire pummeled the northern and western sections of Falluja, with great blossoms of flame brightening and then fading with each boom of the heavy cannons on the AC-130 gunships, circling over the city like birds of prey.

A huge fire burned in the midst of the city. The streets themselves, as seen through the powerful night-vision equipment aboard one Bradley fighting vehicle southeast of Falluja, appeared eerily deserted.

By midnight, the bridge near the hospital and a second strategic bridge, just to the south, were secured.

Before American jets began their bombing on Monday morning, American troops in front of the hospital took intense fire from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades from insurgents across the river. American Bradleys and tanks began returning fire.

In Washington, Pentagon officials said Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were monitoring the preparations and updated combat reports.

Most civilians in Falluja, a city of about 250,000 people 35 miles west of Baghdad, were believed to have left by the time the invasion began.

It was the second time in six months that a battle had raged in Falluja. In April, American troops were closing in on the city center when popular uprisings broke out in cities across Iraq. The outrage, fed by mostly unconfirmed reports of large civilian casualties, forced the Americans to withdraw.

American commanders regarded the reports as inflated, but it was impossible to determine independently how many civilians had been killed. The hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties.

Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi authorised US and Iraqi forces to launch an assault to regain control of the rebel-held city of Fallujah as troops seized key positions in bitter fighting on its outskirts.(AFP/Mehdi Fedouach)

Apache helicopters hover over the northern outskirts of the restive city of Fallujah. US forces began intense shelling across Fallujah after Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi gave his permission to launch an assault on the rebel enclave.(AFP/Patrick Baz)

U.S. Marines conduct a patrol near Falluja in western Iraq (news - web sites), November 8, 2004. U.S. planes and artillery battered Falluja on Monday and Marines moved toward forward positions on the outskirts of the rebel-held city ready for the start of a full-scale offensive. Photo by Eliana Aponte/Reuters

A still from night scope video shows Iraqi soldiers storming the main hospital in Falluja, late November 7, 2004. U.S. warplanes pounded Falluja on November 8 as ground forces battled guerrillas on the outskirts of the rebel-held city that American and Iraqi forces were poised to storm. (Reuters)

Map of Fallujah as fighting rages in the western part of the city after US and Iraqi troops seized a hospital and two bridges.(AFP)

US soldiers gather on the outskirts of the restive city of Fallujah west of Baghdad. US and Iraqi forces rolled into the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah taking a hospital and two bridges as US warplanes struck rebel targets around the city(AFP/Patrick Baz)

Cartoon characters Winnie the Pooh and Daffy Duck hang on the barrel of a machinegun fixed to a US Humvee belonging to the 1st Cavalry Regiment positioned on the outskirts of Fallujah(AFP/Patrick Baz)

The headquarters company of the 1st Battalion The Black Watch dig in at Camp Dogwood, 25 miles (40 kms) south of Baghdad, Iraq (news - web sites), Monday Nov. 8, 2004. Elsewhere, U.S. forces stormed into the western outskirts of Fallujah early Monday, seizing the main city hospital and securing two key bridges over the Euphrates river in what appeared to be the first stage of the long-expected assault on the insurgent stronghold. (AP Photo / Maurice McDonald / Pool)

U.S. Marine captain Robert Bodisch looks on while U.S. sergeant William Hayes of Atlanta, Georgia, looks through a binoculars from Charlie Company, second tank battalion, during a patrol near the city of Falluja in western Iraq (news - web sites), November 8, 2004. U.S. warplanes pounded Falluja on Monday as ground forces battled guerrillas on the outskirts of the rebel-held city that American and Iraqi forces were poised to storm. REUTERS/Eliana Aponte

Donald Rumsfeld, if he stays as Pentagon (news - web sites) chief, faces challenges not only in taming Iraq (news - web sites)'s insurgency but in modernizing the U.S. military and fielding a viable missile defense system, officials and analysts say. Rumsfeld, 72, speaks at his joint news conference with South Korean Minister of National Defense Yoon Kwang Ung at the Pentagon in Washington, October 22, Photo by Yuri Gripas/Reuters

Briefing at 1pm November 8, 2004

Robert Blackwill is seen in New Delhi, India, in this July 29, 2003 file photo, during his tenure as the U.S. ambassador to India. Blackwill, the White House's director of postwar policy for Iraq (news - web sites), who was instrumental in helping to set up an interim government to lead that country until elections can be held, is stepping down according to the Washington Post, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2004. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan, files)

Iraqi security forces are pouring into US military bases on the edge of Fallujah ahead of a possible assault on the rebel-held Iraqi city, officials said.(AFP/Patrick Baz)

US Marines of the 1st Division fire off a mortar round during a training at their base outside Fallujah, Iraq (news - web sites), Saturday, Nov. 6 , 2004. More than 10,000 U.S. troops have taken positions around the rebel-controlled city of Fallujah, bolstering the U.S. Marine units expected to lead a joint Army-Marine assault on the city. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

US Marines of the 1st Division dressed as gladiators stage a chariot race reminiscent of the Charlton Heston movie-complete with confiscated Iraqi horses at their base outside Fallujah, Iraq (news - web sites), Saturday, Nov. 6 , 2004. For U.S. Marines tapped to lead an expected attack on insurgent-held Fallujah, the bags have been packed, trucks have been loaded and final letters have been sent, leaving one final task - the 'Ben-Hur.' (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

US Marines of the 1st Division try to control a horse as they stage a chariot race reminiscent of the Charlton Heston movie, complete with confiscated Iraqi horses at their base outside Fallujah, Iraq (news - web sites), Saturday, Nov. 6 , 2004. For U.S. Marines tapped to lead an expected attack on insurgent-held Fallujah, the bags have been packed, trucks have been loaded and final letters have been sent, leaving one final task - the 'Ben-Hur.' (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

A US marine Abrams tank manoeuvres in Camp Fallujah near the Muslim Sunni city. US forces pounded suspected rebel targets around Iraq (news - web sites)'s flashpoint city of Fallujah as 20 US soldiers were wounded in action in neighbouring Ramadi, the military and an AFP cameraman said.(AFP/Patrick Baz)

A night vision video grab shows British soldiers from the Black Watch regiment on night patrol in a unidentified location in Iraq (news - web sites) November 6, 2004. REUTERS/Pool via Reuters

A video grab shows U.S. bombardment over the Iraqi city of Falluja, Nov. 6, 2004. U.S. forces poised to assault Falluja bombarded the rebel stronghold Saturday, while insurgents launched deadly attacks that killed 34 people in Samarra, another city in Iraq (news - web sites)'s Sunni Muslim heartland. Photo by Pool/Reuters

A soldier from the Black Watch patrols at sunset in and round the area of Camp Dogwood. Two British soldiers were injured in a suicide bomb attack near their base southwest of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the Ministry of Defence in London said.(AFP/Pool/Maurice McDonald)

Pipe Major Scott Taylor, 34, from Glasgow, Scotland, is silhouetted as he plays his bagpipes as he moves across the Jurf-Al-Sukhr Bridge, in Iraq (news - web sites), November 7, 2004 during a memorial for three British Black Watch soldiers. A suicide car bomber killed the three soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter on Thursday in the first fatal attack on the Black Watch since it moved from a relatively quiet southern area last week to stand in for American troops needed elsewhere. REUTERS/Maurice McDonald/Pool

The Warrior of Britain's 1st Battalion, The Black Watch on night patrol in and round the area of Camp Dogwood, south west of Baghdad, Saturday Nov. 6, 2004.(AP Photo/Maurice McDonald, pool)

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