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The Belmont Club continues it fine reporting on the battle in Fallujah.
"If everything goes as planned we will take full control of the city in the next 48 hours," the officer said, on condition of anonymity. The officer said the troops would still need up to a week to make the north-east corner of Falluja safe "and at least 10 days to clear the city". "For now we are clearing pockets of resistance."Back in World War 2, this would have been described as the "end of organized resistance" and the start of "mop-up operations". Historically mop-up operations on Pacific Islands could last for weeks and months. It won't be easy. There are probably many tons of unexploded ordnance lying around, undetonated IEDs and more than a few bypassed tunnels and bolt-holes with holdouts in them. US troops are still probably going to suffer casualties in the coming days cleaning that mess up.
Blackfive has a letter from a Marine in the thick of it.
They are hiding in houses that are heavily fortified and we just destroy the house with a tank shot or a bomb or missile.There is no negotiating or surrender for those guys. If we see the position and positively ID them as bad guys, we strike. When they run, we call it maneuver and we strike them too. Why? Yesterday the muj attacked an ambulance carrying our wounded. The attackers were hunted down and killed without quarter. These guys want to be martyrs...we're helping.
From The Australian...
THE green video screen in the back of a Bradley fighting vehicle is the ultimate in reality television and that is how we watched the battle of Fallujah unfold as our 30-tonne steel beast advanced into the district of Jolan, a rebel bastion, in the small hours of yesterday.Posted by Ted at November 10, 2004 7:16 PMOutside, in the bomb-blasted streets, up to 5000 diehard insurgents were out to kill. Inside, on a screen accurate enough to show rats scavenging on the rubbish piles, the battle between luminous green tanks and luminous green gunmen seemed almost abstract.
Only the shock of the explosions and the occasional back blast of dust when a gunner opened fire reminded us we were in the midst of the most desperate urban battle since the fall of Baghdad. That, and the shrapnel that went right through my arm later in the morning.
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At 2am our column of about 20 tanks and Bradleys of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, rolled in, not knowing whether the guerillas had died, fled or were waiting further back with more booby traps or even the cyanide gas they had boasted of possessing.
Progress was a mere crawl as the drivers spotted huge IEDs -- improvised explosive devices -- that can blow a Bradley in half. The gunners fired into them, triggering a series of massive explosions.
"There were too many IEDs to count," said Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Rainey, the cavalry battalion commander who rode into battle with his men.
Watching the green screen was nerve-racking. With buildings wrecked and streets churned up, there were potential booby traps everywhere. Then, as the column lumbered down a main road, the guerillas appeared.
They emerged from gates, alleyways and rooftops, alone or in small groups. Wherever they faced an armoured vehicle, they died where they stood.
The resistance was determined, but hardly the apocalyptic showdown the guerillas had pledged. They had threatened to throw hundreds of suicide bombers at the Americans. But in the darkness they were at a disadvantage, stumbling blind while the US gunners could see clearly.