By Terry Friel
NEAR FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - Twenty-two American troops have been killed and 170 wounded in the four-day assault on Falluja that has seen U.S. forces take about 80 percent of the rebel city so far, a U.S. Marine general said on Friday.
Lieutenant General Thomas Sattler, commander of the offensive, said five Iraqis had also been killed in the operation launched in a blaze of artillery fire on Monday. But U.S. forces were still conducting house-to-house searches for insurgents.
"We occupy about 80 percent of the city right now," Sattler told reporters at a U.S. base on the edge of Falluja. "There is much clearing to be done even though we occupy about 80 percent."
U.S.-led troops battling to take control ran into areas of fierce resistance on Friday as aid agencies pressed for access to get food and water to needy civilians trapped inside.
Hours after the U.S. Marines said insurgents were penned into the south of Falluja, a battle erupted in the northwest of the Sunni Muslim city, a nerve-center of guerrilla activity.
Sattler said U.S.-led forces had gained the upper hand in the battle, killing about 600 insurgents and capturing 150 during the assault, including at least a dozen foreigners, ten of whom were believed to be from neighboring Iran.
Iraqi officials say foreign Islamic militants are behind much of the bloodshed gripping Iraq, many of them based in Falluja, and have vowed to crush the insurgency ahead of elections scheduled for January.
Loyalists to the former regime and militant nationalists are believed to form the core of the insurgency, which has raged in Iraq since shortly after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
"Our goal right now, we feel we've broken their back and their spirit, is to keep the heat on them," Sattler said of the militants still holed in Falluja, known as the city of mosques.
"The operation is going extremely well and we will continue to press the enemy until we have in fact returned Falluja to the Fallujans."
He said about 300 people had negotiated their surrender on Friday at mosque in the city, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, but U.S.-led forces were trying to ascertain how many of them were fighters and how many civilians.
The U.S. military acknowledges insurgent leaders and other militants may have fled before the attack -- especially since it was clear for nearly a month before the offensive that it would happen -- but says those who remain are cornered.
"They are foreigners. They were not invited to come to Iraq and we want them out of here," Thaer al-Naqib, a spokesman for Iraq's interim prime minister, told reporters.
We just received news of a friend's son who lost his life. It makes one pause to think about how easy it is for all of us to comment from our armchairs while these young men and women are so far from home. Payers to our soldiers...prayers to you and your families. Stay safe.