The Assault on Fallujah has begun...

[GeneralTacticus]

Well, I say good luck to anyone who's unfortunate enough to be in the firing line. Hopefully some of the city will still be standing when they're done.

[salm]

good luck to the civilians.

[frigidmagi]

good luck to the civilians.

Agreed, they're going to need it. I pray and hope they do not receieve the same treatment a certain group of Russian School Child did.

[frigidmagi]

Pardon, Russian School Children.

[CJvR]

Bush wanted to make sure his political ass wasn't on the line before he sent in the soldiers to put their ass on the line.

Or Alawi wanted to negotiate, or not starting something a new administration would abandon, or giving Falujans time to escape, or perhaps the military wasn't readdy untill now...

[BoredShirtless]

Bush wanted to make sure his political ass wasn't on the line before he sent in the soldiers to put their ass on the line.

Or Alawi wanted to negotiate, or not starting something a new administration would abandon, or giving Falujans time to escape, or perhaps the military wasn't readdy untill now...

And maybe that's really the tooth fairy putting money under pillows, and Santa Clause is real, and the US didn't lie and blah blah. And what a shock, it comes from a pro war guy.

[Joe]

12 dead; 10 U.S., 2 Iraqi.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Even a brilliantly executed op will have casualties. Unfortunate, but a reality of war.

[Joe]

12 dead in a day is pretty steep, still, for this war. On the other hand, this probably means that the insurgents have suffered far heavier losses.

[Col. Crackpot]

good luck to the civilians.

the local paper here stated that 90% of the civilian populstion had evacuated, thank god.

[Darth Wong]

good luck to the civilians.

the local paper here stated that 90% of the civilian populstion had evacuated, thank god.

How many insurgents melted away into the countryside with them?

[Admiral Valdemar]

How many insurgents melted away into the countryside with them?

ITN was reporting that before, it would seem that a great many potential targets just vanished with the crowd. It's not like you can easily distinguish friend from foe with these guys.

[Vympel]

Over five hundred 155mm shells fired into Fallujah by M109A6 Paladin SPGs so far

[Chris OFarrell]

They're using 155 mm arty to attack a city against insurgents?

Does the US Armed forces understand the CONCEPT of subtilty?

[Mr Bean]

They're using 155 mm arty to attack a city against insurgents?

Does the US Armed forces understand the CONCEPT of subtilty?

Would you prefer we use giant nerf balls instead?

[Chris OFarrell]

They're using 155 mm arty to attack a city against insurgents?

Does the US Armed forces understand the CONCEPT of subtilty?

Would you prefer we use giant nerf balls instead?

No, I would prefer more directed and discriminating fire.

There were several examples in the initial attack into Iraq of differing responses to situations. Where the Australian SAS ran into entrenched infintry in urben areas and delt with them by precision sniper and machine gun fire. Whereas in very similar situations, the US simply blew the buildings to all hell and to hell with the damage to the area.

Using 155 mm Arty against targets in Urben enviroments is just asking for massive civilian casulaties. These are not cities of cunkers where near misses don't do anything. Hell they are not even generaly upto western construction levels.

[Mr Bean]

They're using 155 mm arty to attack a city against insurgents?

Does the US Armed forces understand the CONCEPT of subtilty?

Would you prefer we use giant nerf balls instead?

No, I would prefer more directed and discriminating fire.

There were several examples in the initial attack into Iraq of differing responses to situations. Where the Australian SAS ran into entrenched infintry in urben areas and delt with them by precision sniper and machine gun fire. Whereas in very similar situations, the US simply blew the buildings to all hell and to hell with the damage to the area.

Using 155 mm Arty against targets in Urben enviroments is just asking for massive civilian casulaties. These are not cities of cunkers where near misses don't do anything. Hell they are not even generaly upto western construction levels.

I'm not the man plaining the assult but the idea of giving the Marine Core snipers a hunting lisence and an ulimited bag limit and free reign of the city has been suggested before but as far as I know we are still doing it the way that will likley minimise Coalition causilites rather than overall causlities

[Chris OFarrell]

Would you prefer we use giant nerf balls instead?

No, I would prefer more directed and discriminating fire.

There were several examples in the initial attack into Iraq of differing responses to situations. Where the Australian SAS ran into entrenched infintry in urben areas and delt with them by precision sniper and machine gun fire. Whereas in very similar situations, the US simply blew the buildings to all hell and to hell with the damage to the area.

Using 155 mm Arty against targets in Urben enviroments is just asking for massive civilian casulaties. These are not cities of cunkers where near misses don't do anything. Hell they are not even generaly upto western construction levels.

I'm not the man plaining the assult but the idea of giving the Marine Core snipers a hunting lisence and an ulimited bag limit and free reign of the city has been suggested before but as far as I know we are still doing it the way that will likley minimise Coalition causilites rather than overall causlities

*shrug*

I won't pretend to have a picture as good as that of the US command, but it just appears that they are sticking to their typical MO of bringing overwhelming firepower on ANYTHING. Granted the firepower is more accurate then ever...but its STILL overwhelming and not IMHO suited at all to the enviroment.

But one way or the other, this battle will be mostly over by the end of the week.

[frigidmagi]

Chris you do grasp that the vast majority of civilans have fled right? Possibly has much has 90%?

Well here's what I found.

FALLUJAH, Iraq - American forces battled south through Fallujah’s narrow lanes and alleys Wednesday to take control of 70 percent of the insurgent stronghold, and rebel fighters were bottled up in a strip of land flanking the main east-west highway that splits the city, the military said.

Maj. Francis Piccoli, of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, characterized fighting overnight as “light to moderate” and said U.S. casualties were “extremely light.”

“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 northwestern neighborhood of Jolan, the historic warren of crooked streets where Sunni militants and foreign fighters had rigged booby traps, was now “secured and under control,” Piccoli said, although Marines were expected to continue house-to-house searches for fighters and weapons.

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.

Also Wednesday, one U.S. soldier was killed and a second was wounded by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad. In northern Iraq, six Iraqi soldiers died and two were wounded when a roadside bomb detonated near an Iraqi military camp.

On Tuesday, a senior U.S. defense official told NBC News that two security personnel were killed Monday in a car bomb attack on the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, Charles Duelfer. Duelfer narrowly escaped the attack.

Fighting in close quarters
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.

Electricity has been cut off in Fallujah, which once was a city of 200,000 to 300,000 people. Residents said they were without running water and were worried about food shortages because most shops were closed.

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.

Maj. Clark Watson, of the 1st Battalion of Marine infantry, said guerrillas were fighting back, but not as hard as expected.

“It wasn’t as much as we thought it would be, but they have put up resistance,” he told Reuters.

Sunni clerics call for election boycott
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.

The bulk of the defenders are believed to be Sunni Muslims from the Fallujah area, but they also include an unknown number of militants from other countries, including followers of Jordan terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It’s unclear whether al-Zarqawi is still in the city; Sunni clerics insist he never was. His followers have been blamed for deadly bombings and the slayings of foreign hostages.

Commanders estimate about 3,000 insurgents are dug in their positions in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad. The vast majority of the civilian population of some 300,000 is believed to have fled, the U.S. military said.

Insurgent defenses are believed strongest in the Jolan neighborhood, a poor district in the heart of Fallujah. Sunni guerrillas also control other cities north and west of Baghdad. They are distinct from the Shiite Muslim followers of firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who launched an uprising throughout southern Iraq and parts of Baghdad earlier this year.

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.”

Al-Zarqawi believed to have escaped
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.: Operation ahead of schedule
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.

From MSN

Those wacky clerics, we can't vote over the bodies of men who were fighting to prevent this election from happening!

Of course it's also a little late to start tigthening the security around the city isn't it?

[Col. Crackpot]

They're using 155 mm arty to attack a city against insurgents?

Does the US Armed forces understand the CONCEPT of subtilty?

to save Fallujah we had to destroy Fallujah

[MKSheppard]

Does the US Armed forces understand the CONCEPT of subtilty?

Yes. Which is why the shells are GPS guided.

[CJvR]

And maybe that's really the tooth fairy putting money under pillows, and Santa Clause is real, and the US didn't lie and blah blah. And what a shock, it comes from a pro war guy.

Just because you prefere other explanations doesn't make them any more valid than my speculation.

[Stravo]

Can anyone tell me if there is any truth to the rumor that many of the insurgents have simply left the city? I mean how can you sit outside of a city for over six months and expect the enemy to placidly wait for you to come to them?

[Knife]

Can anyone tell me if there is any truth to the rumor that many of the insurgents have simply left the city? I mean how can you sit outside of a city for over six months and expect the enemy to placidly wait for you to come to them?

It's probably true. Their Guerrila's. They are set up not to fight head to head, enemy forces but rather hit and run fighting. So the likelyhood of the bulk of these asshats sticking around to fight a fight they can't win is small.

That said, I'm sure they still have a health chunk of fighters in there in the slight hope that the Americans will back off and 'start talks again'.

The news this morning was saying that with the 12 friendly KIA's you had 70 EKIA's.

I'm pissed at Bush for this, BTW. This should have been done 6 months ago instead of delaying it for the election. The chances of rounding up more of these asshats before they melted into the background would have been better as well as appearently denying them the use of their strongholds that they appearenly used for slaughterhouses.

*shrug*

I won't pretend to have a picture as good as that of the US command, but it just appears that they are sticking to their typical MO of bringing overwhelming firepower on ANYTHING. Granted the firepower is more accurate then ever...but its STILL overwhelming and not IMHO suited at all to the enviroment.

But one way or the other, this battle will be mostly over by the end of the week.

They're not using supression fire you dope. They're firing on known enemy strongholds and positions. Its not like the US military is shooting randomly hoping to get the badguys to shoot back!

If you're the grunt on the ground and your looking at a heavily fortified building with unknown amount of enemy personell in it, do you want to be the guy to storm it or would you rather 'Death from the Sky' take care of the problem for you, along with you're FO.

[Col. Crackpot]

Can anyone tell me if there is any truth to the rumor that many of the insurgents have simply left the city? I mean how can you sit outside of a city for over six months and expect the enemy to placidly wait for you to come to them?

a perfect example of a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenerio. If you give the civilians time to flee, you lose many of the insurgents. If you attack suddenly to catch all of the insurgents, you inadvertantly kill thousands of innocent civilians.