FALLUJAH, Iraq – U.S. military officials said Saturday that American troops have occupied the entire city of Fallujah, and there are no more major concentrations of insurgents still fighting after nearly a week of intense urban combat.
A U.S. officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Fallujah was “occupied but not subdued.” Artillery and airstrikes were halted after nightfall to prevent mistaken attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces who had taken up positions throughout the city.
Iraqi officials declared the operation to free Fallujah of militants “accomplished,” but acknowledged the two most wanted figures in the city – Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Sheik Abdullah al-Janabi – had escaped.
U.S. officers said, however, that resistance had not been entirely subdued and that it could take several more days of fighting to clear the final pockets.
The offensive against Fallujah claimed at least 24 American troops and an estimated 1,000 insurgents, and rebel attacks elsewhere – especially in the northern city of Mosul – have forced the Americans to shift troops away from Fallujah.
Exploiting the redeployment, insurgents stepped up attacks in areas outside Fallujah, including a bombing that killed two Marines on the outskirts of the former rebel bastion 40 miles west of Baghdad.
Military activity also surged along the Euphrates river valley well to the north and west of Baghdad, with clashes reported in Qaim on the Syrian border and in Hit and Ramadi, nearer to the capital.
A series of thunderous explosions rocked central Baghdad after sunset Saturday, and sirens wailed in the fortified Green Zone, which houses Iraqi government offices and the U.S. Embassy. The Ansar al-Sunnah Army later claimed responsibility for firing several rockets at the zone; the claim’s authenticity could not be verified.
The aim in southern Fallujah was to eradicate the last major concentration of fighters at the end of nearly a week of air and ground assaults.
“We are just pushing them against the anvil,” said Col. Michael Formica, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 2nd Brigade. “It’s a broad attack against the entire southern front.”
As a prelude to the Saturday assault, a U.S. warplane dropped a 500-pound bomb on an insurgent tunnel network in the city, CNN reported.
U.S. and Iraqi forces also have begun moving against insurgent sympathizers among Iraq’s hard-line Sunni religious leadership, arresting at least four prominent clerics and raiding offices of religious groups that had spoken out against the Fallujah assault.
In Baghdad, Iraqi national security adviser Qassem Dawoud said the Fallujah assault was “accomplished” except for mopping up “evil pockets which we are dealing with now.”
“The number of terrorists and Saddam (Hussein) loyalists killed has reached more than 1,000,” Dawoud said. “As for the detainees, the number is 200 people.”
As U.S. forces pressed their attacks in southern Fallujah, Marines in the northern districts were hunting for about a dozen insurgents dressed in Iraqi National Guard uniforms who were reportedly wandering the streets.
Any Iraqi National Guard or Iraqi special forces not seen with the Marines were to be considered hostile, Lt. Owen Boyce, 24, of Simsbury, Conn., told his men.
U.S. and Iraqi officials want to restore control of Fallujah and other Sunni militant strongholds before national elections, to be held by Jan. 31.
A four-vehicle convoy of the Iraqi Red Crescent carrying humanitarian assistance arrived in Fallujah after the Iraqi and American troops allowed it to pass.
In the southern city of Nasiriyah, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said he expected the operation in Fallujah to conclude by today with a “clear-cut” victory over the insurgents and the terrorists.
Despite the evident military success in Fallujah, U.S. commanders have warned that the insurgency in Iraq will continue, evidenced by the recent spike in violence in the remainder of the Sunni Muslim regions of central Iraq.
The U.S. command withdrew one battalion of the 25th Infantry Division in Fallujah and returned it to Mosul after insurgents attacked police stations, bridges and government buildings Thursday in clashes that killed 10 Iraqi troops and one U.S. soldier.
Mosul was quieter Saturday, but a car bomb exploded as an Iraqi National Guard convoy sent from Kirkuk passed, witnesses said. Seven National Guardsmen were wounded.
More than 400 wounded U.S. soldiers have been transported from Iraq to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany in the past week, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Elsewhere in Iraq, a car bomb exploded on the main road to Baghdad airport, and there was fighting near the Education Ministry in the heart of the capital.
Insurgents also attacked a military base outside Baghdad on Saturday, killing one coalition soldier and wounding three others, the U.S. military said. The nationalities of the casualties weren’t immediately available.
At least four people were killed and 29 wounded, police said, during a U.S. airstrike on rebels and clashes Saturday in the Abu Ghraib suburb of western Baghdad. One Iraqi was killed and 10 wounded in fighting between U.S. troops and insurgents in the northern city of Tal Afar.
Associated Press
A U.S. Marine takes aim after coming under fire Saturday in western Fallujah, Iraq.
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