Posted on 11/16/2004 1:51:01 PM PST by LibWhacker
In Fallujah, US officers say the remaining rebels are smart, and adapting to changing battle conditions.
FALLUJAH, IRAQ – The insurgent safe house in Fallujah looked like every other one on the block, except that it was carefully marked with two new bricks, hanging from cord on the outer wall.
Explosives experts had already been in the carport, and blown up several mortar tubes set up in the back of a truck - a mobile artillery unit favored by rebels.
Related stories 11/16/2004 As smoke clears, next battles are political 11/16/2004 Next Fallujah battle: hearts, minds more stories...
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But Tuesday 1st Sgt. Rodolfo Sarino wanted to take the counterinsurgency effort one step further, in keeping with the volumes of new information US troops are learning every day about the rebellion they are trying to crush.
He upended barrels full of drinking water, and used his knife to carve slits into plastic water jugs, draining them, too. Then the marine examined the large store of food adjacent to the kitchen: sacks of rice, bowls of potatoes, and onions.
And he lit a match.
Within minutes, the store was on fire, adding belching black smoke to Fallujah's acrid skyline - and depriving mobile bands of insurgents of at least one life-giving larder.
"That's how they move from place to place and survive," Sergeant Sarino said, as flames began licking up the food cache. "They go from house to house, and stockpile food and water wherever they can. You have to [burn it], because that's the only way to defeat them: Deny them food and water, and force them to come out."
Such tactics are paying off to a degree, in a guerrilla fight on an urban battlefield, where the learning curve for conventional US Marine and Army forces has been steep.
Hungry insurgents have been found among the dozens of men who visited food distribution sites tentatively opened by the Iraqi National Guard on Monday.
Those suspects have been questioned, and in one case, have led Americans to a safe house stacked with food, a suicide belt packed with explosives, dozens of electronic garage-door openers (used to set off command-controlled car bombs), and other hardware.
US, insurgents learning more
But the invasion of Fallujah - nerve center and symbol for Iraq's nationwide insurgency - enters its second week, US and Iraqi forces are learning more and more about each other.
Tactics learned here will almost certainly be used against insurgents elsewhere in Iraq, who have taken the Fallujah assault as their cue to attack in a string of cities across Iraq.
US troops Tuesday had to send a 1,200-strong force to retake control of the center of the northern city of Mosul. In Sunni strongholds, guerrillas overran nine police stations. In recent days, they have killed scores of people.
The US is trying to stamp out the insurgency in Sunni regions of Iraq ahead of elections scheduled for January. A Sunni politician who withdrew from Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's government to protest the Fallujah assault was arrested Tuesday in Baghdad by US forces, the Associated Press reported.
Holdouts remain
In Fallujah, US forces now occupy all the city, but they are far from subduing a persistent enemy. While hundreds of insurgents have been killed - among them, officers believe, the majority who were interested in suicide martyr operations - many remain who have proven to be smarter, and don't want to die.
US officers say that insurgent tactics are evolving, just as American ones are too, in response. They say they have found evidence of tunnels connecting houses - a ploy once preferred by Serb snipers in Sarajevo - and even use of the underground sewer system.
Insurgents have fired from behind curtains, to mask the flash of their muzzles. They have used armor-piercing ammunition and advanced sniper rifles.
They have also turned living rooms into machine-gun nests, lying in wait for marines who these days are clearing houses. In recent days, two marines died when they crashed through a front gate to clear a house.
Two more casualties came from another incident, in which insurgents had taken a family hostage. Marines broke in, they say, held their fire because of the family, and then were shot themselves.
Marines now use far more "dynamic" entries, which include using explosives to blow open doors, breaching ladders to scale walls and even to bridge separate houses, and flash-bang and fragmentation grenades to clear rooms.
Some platoons are running short of shotgun shells, because so many doors have been breached with them.
One of the biggest firefights took place when Alpha Company set up a platoon base two doors down from a group of more than 30 insurgents. For two days, the rebels kept their activity hidden and quiet.
"They didn't do a thing until we were on their door," says one officer, about the incident that turned into a noisy gunbattle that killed an estimated 15 insurgents in the eastern section of the city. "They shot, and then ran away. The first chance these guys had to run, they did. They ran down the easiest path."
But finding the safe houses and remaining insurgents has not been easy for the 10,000 US troops in a city of 300,000 residents, nearly all of whom have moved out during hostilities.
Marines say they have found lots of drugs in safe houses, probably amphetamines similar to speed, to keep them awake. Al Qaeda safe houses in Kabul, after the Taliban fell in November 2001, contained such drugs.
"The enemy did not respond, until we knocked on the exact door," says another officer.
Amateur mistakes
But other incidents on this battlefield attest to the amateur nature of many insurgents. In one case, 40 or so insurgents gathered and ran openly down a street, with weapons slung on their backs.
When they hid in a building, US forces didn't hesitate: They destroyed the whole building.
"We've go to get inside their heads," one officer told fellow commanders. "Tactics are evolving, ours and theirs. We've killed those who want to die, and the stupid ones. Now they are smart. And want to live."
I guess they ran out of virgins so they now want to live?
insurgent = TERRORIST
This article seems to be about 98% Marine tactic improvement, about 1% stupid insurgent tactics, and about 1% Insurgent tactic improvment.
That would be my first plan as well.
Sounds like a bunch of tweakers to me. They're paranoid to start with from the speed, and they need less food. Hygiene is no longer a concern to them - if it ever was. Of course they have lots of stripped out electrical systems - not only for the IEDs, but also because tweakers like to take apart electronics. They also see better at night than if they weren't speeding, and think they are somewhat invincible (as evidenced by their insane tactics as well as their bluster).
Tweakers are scum here in the US. Take that scum, and then couple that with the fact that these scum are uneducated moon god worshipping goat blowers, and the world should be thanking each and every soldier and Marine for every one of them they kill. Our forces are more like the human race's immune system at this point, killing the infections and cancers that arise.
I'm surprised that the terrorists still alive aren't using PCP instead of amphetamines/methamphetamines. Then they'd really think they were superhumans (until turned into a red mist).
I don't understand why those are still working.
That would be a great leaflet to drop on the cities..
DUE TO OVERWHELMING DEMAND, ALLAH IS ALL OUT OF VIRGINS !
In Fallujah.
In Fallujah.
And there's Bradleys to the rear of me.
Of all the wars we have won and have lost
There is one foe we should never have crossed.
We have a chance in a million, my friend,
I should have known we would lose in the end.
In Fallujah,
And there's Marines to the rear, I see,
In Fallujah,
and the snipers put the fear in me
Although I sneer and say "allah akhbar!",
Beneath this dirt I am covered with scars.
Our men are falling like rain from the sky
Is it for Saddam or Osama we die?
In Fallujah,
And I've lost some men who're near to me,
In Fallujah
And a Cobra just appeared to me.
What have we done to deserve such a fate,
Allah, our god, I had thought you were great,
And so it's true, don't take on the Marines,
I'm telling you, they are killing machines.
In Fallujah,
And I lost my life so dear to me,
In Fallujah,
And now Satan has appeared to me.
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