A firefighter hoses wreckage at the scene of a huge explosion that hit the heart of Baghdad on Thursday.
An Iraqi stands on the roof of a building next to the remains of a vehicle which landed there following a car bomb in Baghdad. The bomb ripped through one of the main shopping streets in the Iraqi capital and sent a thick column of black smoke into the air.(AFP/Marwan Naamani)
U.S. Troops Comb Falluja; Baghdad Bomb Kills 17
U.S. Army soldiers secure area after a car bomb attack in the northern Iraqcity of Kirkuk, November 11, 2004. Kirkuk's provincial governor escaped unhurt when a car bomb blew up near his convoy in the northern city, wounding 16 people, police and hospital officials said. REUTERS/str
Smoke billows from US targeted areas in the restive Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah. US marines said they discovered three Iraqi hostages inside the basement of houses in Fallujah.(AFP/Patrick Baz)
US Marines sneak into a breach in a wall in the restive Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah. US marines backed by Iraqi troops occupied nearly three-quarters of Fallujah.(AFP/USMC/HO)
A US soldier patrols a street in Fallujah. The US military estimates that more than 500 insurgents have been killed in the battle for the restive Iraqi city.(AFP/USMC/HO)
U.S. Launches Second Phase in Fallujah
By EDWARD HARRIS, Associated Press Writer
FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. soldiers and Marines launched a large attack Thursday into the southern half of Fallujah, where insurgents are still holding out, opening a second phase in the offensive, U.S. officials said.
The assault began around sundown and followed three days of fighting in the northern districts.
U.S. troops launched their major assault against Fallujah late Monday, pushing into northern districts until they reached the main east-west highway that bisects the city. Fighting has been underway since then to clear pockets of resistance from northern areas, where insurgent positions were believed the strongest.
Commanders say their troops have cordoned off the entire city to prevent fighters from escaping.
U.S. warplanes and artillery bombarded southern parts of Fallujah where troops were trying to squeeze Sunni fighters in a smaller and smaller cordon Thursday. The military estimated 600 insurgents have been killed in the offensive but acknowledged success in the city won't break Iraq's insurgency.
The huge Fallujah campaign has also sent a stream of American wounded to the military's main hospital in Europe. Planes carrying around 90 bloodied and broken troops were expected Thursday at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. They join 125 wounded soldiers flown there already this week.
The large number of wounded sent to Germany suggests that fighting may be more intense — at least in some areas — than the military had initially indicated. Only seriously wounded troops are flown to Landstuhl.
At least 13 U.S. soldiers and Marines have been killed so far in the Fallujah operation, according to military reports pieced together since Monday. The military has been slow in releasing official, comprehensive reports, citing security.
Military officials cautioned that the figure of 600 insurgents killed in Fallujah was only a rough estimate. Some 1,200 to 3,000 fighters were believed holed up in the city before the offensive. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers said Thursday that "hundreds and hundreds of insurgents" have been killed and captured.
The number of civilian casualties in the city is not known. Most of the city's 200,000-300,000 residents are thought to have fled before the offensive. The rest have been hunkered down in their homes without electricity during days of heavy barrages, with food supplies reported low.
In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded on a central commercial street Thursday morning, killing at least 17 people and wounding at least eight, police said. It was the latest in a wave of attacks that insurgents have unleashed this week, trying to divert U.S. and Iraqi forces and show they can still wage their campaign of violence despite the Fallujah assault.
The car bomb — the second one in as many days in the capital — narrowly missed a U.S. patrol on Saadoun Street but ripped through the crowded thoroughfare, near major hotels housing foreigners. Huge plumes of black smoke rose in the air as a dozen mangled cars burned, and bystanders pulled bodies and bloodied survivors from the rubble.
Heavy fighting also continued in the northern city of Mosul, where insurgents overran several police stations, the U.S. military said. Militants were roaming the streets amid the sounds of explosions and gunfire.
In Fallujah, U.S. troops were steadily advancing through the city from the northern side, pushing militants slowly into the southern half. With U.S. units positioned to the south and east, and the Euphrates River on the west, insurgents are being squeezed into a corner, the military said.
Loud explosions rocked the city throughout the morning as gunfire reverberated across town and helicopters hovered overhead. Marines were seen perched on rooftops. Many buildings were heavily damaged, with few signs of civilians.
Gen. Myers, speaking on NBC's "Today" show, called the offensive "very, very successful."
But, he added, "If anybody thinks that Fallujah is going to be the end of the insurgency in Iraq, that was never the objective, never our intention, and even never our hope."
U.S. officers in Fallujah have said many insurgents may have abandoned the city — long their strongest bastion — before the U.S. assault and moved elsewhere to continue their campaign of attacks.
"There has always been pockets of resistance in this type of fighting, just like there was in World War II — we would claim an island is secure and fight them for months after that," Marine Capt. John Griffin said. "Claiming the city is secure doesn't actually mean that all the resistance is gone, it just means that we have secured the area and have control."
In the past 24 hours of fighting, three Americans were killed and another 17 wounded in Fallujah, commanders said. The military on Tuesday put the total American toll in the operation at 10.
Two Marine Super Cobra attack helicopters were hit by ground fire and forced to land in separate incidents near Fallujah, the military said Thursday. The crews were not injured and were rescued.
With American troops in control of large swaths of the city, an Iraqi commander reported the discovery of "hostage slaughterhouses" in which foreign captives had been killed. Documents of hostages were found, along with CDs showing beheadings and the black clothes of kidnappers, he said.
U.S. troops also discovered an Iraqi man chained to a wall in a building in northeastern Fallujah, the military said Thursday. The man, who was shackled at the ankles and wrists, bruised and starving, told Marines he was a taxi driver abducted 10 days ago and that his captors had beat him with cables.
In what could be a sign of progress, the Marines began turning over the northern neighborhood of Jolan to Iraqi forces, signaling that they consider the area relatively secure. Jolan, a dense, historic district of tight alleyways, was considered one of the strongest positions held by militants inside Fallujah and parts of it saw heavy fighting.
In one of the most dramatic clashes Wednesday, snipers fired on U.S. and Iraqi troops from the minarets of the Khulafah al-Rashid mosque, the military said. U.S. Marines called in an airstrike, and an F-18 dropped a 500-pound bomb on the mosque, destroying both minarets.
Pool footage showed U.S. forces battling insurgents in a neighborhood surrounding the mosque. Troops were pinned down by gunfire on a rooftop, forced to hit the deck and lay on their stomachs.
U.S. troops were also skirmishing with insurgents late Wednesday in Fallujah's Wihdah and Muhandiseen neighborhoods, according to Iraqi journalist Abdul Qader Saadi, who said he saw burnt armored vehicles and tanks and bodies in the streets.
The U.S. military has sent up to 15,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops into the Fallujah battle.
Meanwhile, rebels have continued heavy attacks elsewhere. At least 28 people were killed in violence outside Fallujah Wednesday — including 10 killed in a Baghdad car bomb.
In Mosul, where authorities announced a curfew a day earlier, insurgents attacked several police stations, overwhelming police and forcing U.S. and Iraqi troops to intervene and prompting the governor to seek police reinforcements from neighboring provinces, the U.S. military said.
Residents saw masked gunmen roaming the streets, setting police cars on fire and controlling some of the bridges. Police and American troops were not visible in those neighborhoods.
A car bomb targeted the convoy of the governor of Kirkuk, who escaped, but a bystander was killed and 14 others were wounded, police said.
Militants kidnapped three relatives of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, and a militant group on Wednesday threatened to behead the three in 48 hours unless the Fallujah siege is halted. Militants also claimed to have abducted 20 Iraqi National Guard troops in Fallujah.
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Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Jim Krane near Fallujah; and Tini Tran, Sameer N. Yacoub, Mariam Fam, Sabah Jerges, Katarina Kratovac and Maggie Michael in Baghdad.