I cant imagine what the Families of these soldiers are going through.
You would think at some point the cities residents would over run the terrorists once we kill enough of them off.
"Baghdad's international airport was closed to military traffic after a missile was fired at a C130 transport plane. The plane escaped by dropping chaff that diverted the missile.
A major first objective was a mosque about a kilometre in from the city's northern edge that the military said was being used as an arms depot. U.S. troops surrounded the site while Iraqi forces entered the mosque, the BBC reported.
Iraqi troops seized several mosques in the city and uncovered weapons caches, Metz said. "Iraq forces are leading the attack through culturally sensitive areas," said Maj.-Gen. Abdul Qader Mohan, appointed by Allawi to lead Iraqi forces in Fallujah. "Areas with schools, hospitals and mosques (will be) under the operational control of the Iraqi army."
Metz told reporters that he was working "on the assumption" that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - the most wanted terror leader in Iraq - had left Fallujah. But he insisted those fighters still in the city don't "have an escape route. We have the cordon around the city very tight."
checking out till later, take care. :)
From correspondents in Fallujah
November 10, 2004
US forces backed by Iraqi troops surged into the heart of Fallujah yesterday, taking a grip on Iraq's most rebellious city after a day of intense street-to-street combat.
The Pentagon said at least 10 US and two Iraqi soldiers had died since the offensive began on Monday night. The US Defence Department says it is the biggest urban battle since the Vietnam War.
After sunset yesterday US tanks and armoured personnel carriers in the northern part of Fallujah came under fierce assault from rebels firing rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 rifles.
Residents said explosions echoed in the night, but it appeared most large-scale fighting had eased.
Some US tanks were seen pulling back from central areas of the city for the night. Others remained in place.
"I think we are looking at several more days of tough urban fighting," said the US commander in charge of day-to-day military operations in Iraq, Lieutenant-General Thomas Metz.
Lt-Gen Metz said insurgent casualties had been higher than expected and civilian losses low. He gave no details.
The general said US forces easily penetrated the insurgents' outer defenses, however, and were now opposed by small, poorly organized groups of fighters.
He said he assumed that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the militant blamed for spectacular car bombings, kidnappings and beheadings that have rocked Iraq for months, was no longer in Fallujah.
US forces still have intelligence capabilities in the city dedicated to finding him, but the hunt for the Jordanian stretches across the country, Lt-Gen Metz said.
A US military ambulance driver said he had seen many casualties.
Residents said a US air strike hit a clinic in a central district, killing some medical staff and patients.
A 9-year-old boy, was also severely injured by shrapnel in the abdomen when his home was bombarded by US jets overnight.
His parents were unable to get him to hospital and he bled to death. They buried him their garden, they said.
Insurgents strike back
As battles raged in Fallujah, insurgents hit back elsewhere with attacks on police stations in Baquba and Baghdad, fighting in Ramadi and a mortar attack in the northern city of Mosul.
But in Baquba, the official in charge of the main morgue denied earlier reports 45 were killed in attacks claimed by al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He said he had not dealt with any dead from the attacks.
Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi used emergency powers he activated on Sunday to impose an indefinite curfew on Baghdad from 10:30pm (7.30am AEDT) to 4am (11am AEDT) every night.
In Fallujah, a Marines tank company commander - part of a US-led force of at least 10,000 - said guerrillas were battling hard in the northern Jolan district.
"They are putting up a strong fight and I saw many of them on the street I was on," Captain Robert Bodisch said.
Many families had fled the city of 300,000 to escape air raids before the offensive. The US military said about 150,000 residents had taken refuge outside Fallujah.
Residents say they have no power and use kerosene lamps at night. They keep to ground floors for safety. Telephones are erratic and food shops have been closed for six days.
Iraqi troops brought nine handcuffed prisoners to a railway station on the northern edge of the Jolan area where US and Iraqi forces are based. They said two of them were Egyptians and one was Syrian. The rest were Iraqis.
But Lt-Gen Metz said Zarqawi and other leaders had most likely escaped the city to regroup elsewhere.
A suspected car bomb outside an Iraqi National Guard base near Kirkuk killed three people and wounded two. In Samarra, a senior local government official was assassinated, police said.
Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor at the main Fallujah hospital who escaped arrest when it was taken on Monday, said the city was running out of supplies and only a few clinics remained open.
"There is not a single surgeon in Fallujah. We had one ambulance hit by US fire and a doctor wounded. There are scores of injured civilians in their homes whom we can't move.
"A 13-year-old child just died in my hands," he said by telephone from a house where he had gone to help the wounded.
The Government sees Fallujah and its sister city of Ramadi as rebel havens that must be retaken before January elections.