The Sandspur

Issue date: 11/19/04 Section: News

Media Credit: KHAMPHA BOUAPHANH/KRT FIGHTING TO CONTROL FALLUJAH: Soldiers face bombs and urban combat while trying to gain control in Fallujah.

Media Credit: PAUL ASSAKER/KRT THE BATTLE RAGES: It is reported that the Fallujah mission is nearly completed, yet the violence continues.

After a six day operation in Fallujah, U.S. troops reported that they had subdued most of the remaining insurgency in the city. In recent months, Fallujah had become a command-and-control center for about 2,000 to 3,000 insurgents resisting U.S. occupation.

Following a six day assault led by 10,000 U.S. soldiers and 2,000 soldiers from the newly established Iraqi military, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that Fallujah was no longer a "safe haven for terrorists." Around 2,000 insurgents and 40 U.S. soldiers had been killed.

Troops started their operation in the northeast of the city and pushed south by the end of the week. Night after night the sky was lit with artillery and tank fire. Soldiers struggled with the unique challenge of urban combat and roadside bombs. They found small insurgency cells in alleyways and bombed out buildings.

Jane Arraf, a CNN Baghdad bureau chief and journalist embedded with the U.S. military, reported after the first day of fighting the various levels making up the insurgency resistance. At the lowest level there were those, mostly young, who were fighting mainly for money. Others were extreme religious fundamentalists. Some cells consisted of former Baath Party members. Others were foreign fighters contributing to the insurgents' cause.

The operation was the third attempt to control Fallujah. According to Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, this time U.S. troops were "ahead of schedule."

"We learned from April," he said. "We can't do it piecemeal. When we go in, we go all the way through. We had the green light this time and we went all the way."

The city, with a population of 250,000 to 300,000 is now a ghost town. A few days into the fighting, Iraqi troops found "slaughterhouses" where people were held captive and beheaded. CDs were found labeled "beheading of...."

For much of the week, U.S. forces refused humanitarian aid from entering the city. There is a concern that many civilians are trapped without food, water, and medicine. The BBC News website spoke to Fadhil Badrani, an Iraqi journalist who reports for Reuters and the BBC World Service in Arabic. He reported that families have come to him asking where they can find food. He told one family that the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had died. They were shocked and told him that they thought it was a conspiracy. "They have killed him so that his death overshadows our plight in the news," they said.

Stories such as these have raised questions as to whether the media is doing its job. Badrani was asked by many of Fallujah's citizens if everything he was reporting was actually being broadcast. The operation in Fallujah is now considered "almost finished," according to Iraq's National Security Adviser Kasim Dawood. Other reports say Fallujah is "occupied, but not subdued." However, escalation of violence in other Iraqi cities still continues.

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