U.S. forces hold 70 percent of Fallujah

NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - U.S. Marines said American forces had taken control Wednesday of 70 percent of Fallujah in the third day of a major offensive to retake the insurgent stronghold.

Major Francis Piccoli, of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said enemy fighters were bottled up in a strip of the city flanking the major east-west highway that splits Fallujah.

"There's going to be a movement today in those areas. The heart of the city is what's in focus now," he said.

The military said at least 71 militants were killed in intense urban combat in the city's deserted and narrow lanes, but the number was expected to rise sharply once U.S. forces account for those killed in airstrikes.

As of Tuesday night, 10 U.S. troops and two members of the Iraqi security force had been killed, a toll that already equaled the number of American troops who died when Marines besieged the city for three weeks in April.

Marine reports Wednesday said 25 American troops and 16 Iraqi soldiers were wounded.

As the American forces crossed the highway that split Fallujah, armored Army units stayed behind to guard the thoroughfare.

The military reported no heavy fighting overnight, but a U.S. attack helicopter wiped out an insurgent rocket launcher southwest of Fallujah.

Earlier, as many as eight attack aircraft - including jets and helicopter gunships - blasted guerrilla strongholds and raked the streets with rocket, cannon and machine-gun fire ahead of U.S. and Iraqi infantry who were advancing only one or two blocks behind the curtain of fire.

Small groups of guerrillas, armed with rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and machine guns, engaged U.S. troops, then fell back. U.S. troops inspected houses along Fallujah's streets and ran across adjoining alleyways, mindful of snipers.

A psychological operations unit broadcast announcements in Arabic meant to draw out gunmen. An Iraqi translator from the group said through a loudspeaker: "Brave terrorists, I am waiting here for the brave terrorists. Come and kill us. Plant small bombs on roadsides. Attention, attention, terrorists of Fallujah."

Faced with overwhelming force, resistance in Fallujah did not appear as fierce as expected, though the top U.S. commander in Iraq said he still expected "several more days of tough urban fighting" as insurgents fell back toward the southern end of the city, perhaps for a last stand.

Some U.S. military officers estimated they controlled about a third of the city. Commanders said they had not fully secured the northern half of Fallujah but were well on their way as American and Iraqi troops searched for insurgents.

U.S. and Iraqi troops captured two key landmarks Tuesday - a mosque and neighboring convention center that insurgents used for launching attacks, according to a Los Angeles Times reporter embedded with U.S. forces.

"I'm surprised how quickly (resistance) broke and how quickly they ran away, a force of foreign fighters who were supposed to fight to the death," Lt. Col. Pete Newell, a battalion commander in the 1st Infantry Division, told CNN.

Newell was quoted on CNN's Web site as saying his battalion had killed or wounded 85 to 90 insurgents.

The move against Fallujah prompted influential Sunni Muslim clerics to call for a boycott of national elections set for January. A widespread boycott among Sunnis could wreck the legitimacy of the elections, seen as vital in Iraq's move to democracy. U.S. commanders have said the Fallujah invasion is the centerpiece of an attempt to secure insurgent-held areas so voting can be held.

Prime Minister Ayad Allawi declared a nighttime curfew in Baghdad and its surroundings - the first in the capital for a year - to prevent insurgents from opening up a "second front" to try to draw American forces away from Fallujah. Clashes erupted in the northern city of Mosul and near the Sunni bastion of Ramadi, explosions were reported in at least two cities and masked militants brandished weapons and warned merchants to close their shops.

In Fallujah, U.S. troops were advancing more rapidly than in April, when insurgents fought a force of fewer than 2,000 Marines to a standstill in a three-week siege. It ended with the Americans handing over the city to a local force, which lost control to Islamic militants.

This time, the U.S. military has sent up to 15,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops into the battle, backed by tanks, artillery and attack aircraft. More than 24 hours after launching the main attack, U.S. soldiers and Marines had punched through insurgent strongholds in the north and east of Fallujah and reached the major east-west highway that bisects the city.

"The enemy is fighting hard but not to the death," Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the multinational ground force commander in Iraq, told a Pentagon news conference relayed by video from Iraq. "There is not a sense that he is staying in particular places. He is continuing to fall back or he dies in those positions."

Metz said Iraqi soldiers searched several mosques Tuesday and found "lots of munitions and weapons."

Although capturing or killing the senior insurgent leadership is a goal of the operation, Metz said he believed the most wanted man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had escaped Fallujah.

It was unclear how many insurgents stayed in the city for the fight, given months of warnings by U.S. officials and Iraqis that a confrontation was in the offing.

Metz said troops have captured a very small number of insurgent fighters and "imposed significant casualties against the enemy."

Before the major ground assault that began Monday night, the U.S. military reported 42 insurgents killed. Fallujah doctors reported 12 people dead. Since then, there has been no specific information on Iraqi death tolls.

The latest American deaths included two killed by mortars near Mosul and 11 others who died Monday, most of them as guerrillas launched a wave of attacks in Baghdad and southwest of Fallujah. It was unclear how many of those died in the Fallujah offensive, but the 11 deaths were among the highest for a single day since last spring.

But the toll in Fallujah could have been higher. Early Tuesday, a helicopter gunship destroyed a multiple rocket launcher aimed at the main American camp outside of the city.

"That saved our lives," Col. Michael Formica, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division's 2nd Brigade, told the crew. "We have no idea how many soldiers here were saved by your good work."

U.S. commanders said the operation was running on or ahead of schedule, and Iraqi officials designated an Iraqi general to run the city once resistance is broken.

However, the American command said the insurgents were massing in the southern half of the city, from which U.S. troops were receiving mortar fire. Some U.S. units were reported advancing south of the main highway but not in strength.

Formica said the security cordon around the city will be tightened to ensure insurgents don't slip out.

"My concern now is only one - not to allow any enemy to escape. As we tighten the noose around him, he will move to escape to fight another day. I do not want these guys to get out of here. I want them killed or captured as they flee," Formica said.

U.S. officials said few people were attempting to flee the city, either because most civilians had already left or because they were complying with a round-the-clock curfew. A funeral procession, however, was allowed to leave, officials said.

Anger over the assault grew among Iraq's Sunni minority, and international groups and the Russian government warned that military action could undermine elections in January. The U.N. refugee agency expressed fears over civilians' safety.

The Sunni clerics' Association of Muslim Scholars called for a boycott of the elections. The association's director, Harith al-Dhari, said the Sunnis could not take part in an election held "over the corpses of those killed in Fallujah."

The call is expected to have little resonance within the rival Shiite Muslim community, which forms about 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people.

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Robert Burns in Washington; Edward Harris in Fallujah; and Tini Tran, Mariam Fam, Katarina Kratovac and Maggie Michael in Baghdad.

Reuters version

Fighting Rages in Iraq's Falluja After Night Lull

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/iraq_dc

By Michael Georgy and Fadel al-Badrani

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes launched air strikes in the Iraqi city of Falluja on Wednesday amid fierce fighting between U.S.-led forces and rebels.

Machinegun, mortar and rocket fire shook the Sunni Muslim city as planes made several bombing runs over the northwestern Jolan district within 15 minutes, a Reuters reporter said.

Smoke was rising from houses just beyond Falluja's captured rail station, where Marines and Iraqi forces have a base.

Marines said their opponents showed no signs of giving up, even though U.S. forces penetrated to the center of the city, west of Baghdad, after an offensive launched on Monday night.

Marine tanks that pushed through central Falluja on Tuesday night met tough resistance.

Gunnery Sergeant Ishmail Castillo, a member of one tank crew, told Reuters insurgents along the main road that cuts through Falluja fired machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades after they had come under U.S. mortar fire.

Another Reuters reporter said explosions and smoke marked heavy fighting in Jolan and the eastern Hay al-Askari district.

The Pentagon (news - web sites) said on Tuesday evening that at least 10 U.S. and two Iraqi soldiers had died in the offensive unleashed by 10,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines and 2,000 Iraqi troops.

The assault on Falluja, where residents say wounded children are dying from lack of medical help, food shops are closed and power is cut, angered Sunni clerics who urged Iraqis to boycott January elections seen as vital to peace.

Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who on Tuesday imposed a night curfew on Baghdad for an indefinite period, got a personal taste of Sunni anger at a Ramadan Iftar meal the same day.

"You have to stop fighting for four or five hours," Adnan al-Dulaimi, a Sunni official in the Religious Affairs Ministry, urged Allawi before the evening meal, a pool reporter said.

"There are a lot of injured that have to be taken care of. Give them time to rescue the injured. There are civilians getting killed in Fallujah. You are responsible for their lives in front of God," Dulaimi declared.

"As you know, we tried every alternative before resorting to military force," Allawi replied. "We have nothing against the civilians of Falluja...They are the sons of this country."

BIG FISH GET AWAY

Allawi and his U.S. backers have vowed to retake rebel-held areas before the January polls. They say disgruntled Baathists and militants led by Jordanian al-Qaeda ally Zarqawi have turned Falluja into the epicenter of Iraq (news - web sites)'s bloody insurgency.

Metz said Zarqawi and other senior rebels have probably already fled Falluja, leaving the fighting to lesser ranks.

The Falluja assault has fueled insecurity among Sunni Arabs, who make up some 20 percent of Iraq's 25 million people, but who wielded disproportionate power under Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).

In a move which could undermine the Jan. 27 polls, the influential Muslim Clerics' Association urged a boycott.

"The clerics call on the ... people of Iraq to boycott the coming elections that they want to hold on the remains of the dead and the blood of the wounded from Iraqi cities like Falluja and others," said Harith al-Dhari, its top official.

U.S. Marines poured hundreds of rounds into rebel positions and blasted buildings with tank shells on Tuesday, but also took casualties with bloodied troops stretchered away.

American aircraft destroyed one building in Falluja with a laser-guided bomb after U.S. and Iraqi forces came under fire from insurgents inside, the U.S. military said.

Explosions could be heard across Falluja after nightfall, but large-scale fighting appeared to have eased.

"I think we are looking at several more days of tough urban fighting," said the U.S. commander in charge of day-to-day military operations in Iraq, Lieutenant-General Thomas Metz.

Briefing reporters in Washington by video teleconference from Iraq, Metz said the 2,000-3,000 rebels were in Falluja putting up a scattered resistance with "little coherence."

Rebel casualties were higher than expected and civilian losses were low, Metz said, without giving details.

But residents say scores of civilians died and for those struggling to live in the city, life is grim.

Many of the city's 300,000 people had fled to escape air strikes and artillery bombardments preceding the assault. The U.S. military said about 150,000 residents had left.

Those left behind say they have no power and use kerosene lamps. They keep to ground floors for safety, some living in shattered homes because it is too dangerous to move.

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