FALLUJAH, Iraq - On the eve of the first anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein, the battle for this Sunni Muslim stronghold continued for a fourth day Thursday, and five more U.S. troops were reported killed. In Iraq's south, militiamen loyal to an anti-U.S. Shiite cleric controlled large swaths of three cities. advertisement
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The newly invigorated, two-front insurgency produced scenes of chaos and violence in Iraq not seen since U.S. forces captured Baghdad a year ago Friday. The U.S. military said that three soldiers of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division were killed Wednesday and Thursday in various attacks by Sunni insurgents and that a fourth died from wounds he suffered in an earlier attack. The deaths, along with that of a Marine who was killed Thursday in Fallujah, brought to 40 the number of U.S. personnel killed across Iraq this week. In Baghdad, three explosions rocked downtown Thursday, with smoke rising from the Green Zone, the sealed-off neighborhood where the U.S.-led coalition has its headquarters. The military did not immediately report any casualties. Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top general in Iraq, acknowledged that the al-Mahdi Army militia, led by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, had full control over Kut and partial control in Najaf in the south. After heavy fighting the night before, Ukrainian troops pulled out of Kut on Wednesday, allowing militiamen to flood into their base, grabbing weapons and planting their flag. Concerns over religious ceremonies
Sanchez told reporters in Baghdad that the coalition would “retake the city of Kut imminently,” but he suggested that the presence of hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims in Najaf for a religious occasion this weekend was hampering coalition forces from moving against militiamen.  | Slide Show |
| | • Fierce fighting
View images from the clashes raging around the country between coalition forces and insurgents. |
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“We are very cognizant of the religious ceremonies,” he said. The Shiite uprising comes as up to 5 million Shiite pilgrims are expected to flock to shrines this weekend to mark the end of al-Arbaeen, the mourning period for a Shiite saint martyred in the 7th century. On March 2, at the start of the mourning period, simultaneous explosions ripped through crowds of worshippers at Shiite Muslim shrines in Baghdad and Karbala, killing at least 181 of them. Sanchez also said there appeared to be links “at the lowest levels” between the Shiite militia — which has been battling coalition forces in at least a half-dozen southern cities this week — and Arab Sunni insurgents who have long fought U.S. troops in central Iraq. Militiamen also controlled Kufa, holding police stations and government buildings in the town, according to residents. In Baghdad, U.S. forces have been battling nightly with the militia in their stronghold, the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City. A U.S. helicopter struck al-Sadr’s office in the district before dawn Thursday, heavily damaging it and causing an unknown number of wounded. Hundreds of others killed
The fighting this week has killed at least 459 Iraqis, including more than 280 who have died since Monday morning, when the Marines began their siege against insurgents in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, a local hospital official said. Some of the dead might also be foreign fighters recruited from neighboring Muslim countries. In addition, gunmen have kidnapped three Japanese civilians. They may also have captured two Arabs from Jerusalem and a Briton. At a time when U.S. forces had planned to try to hand more security duties over to Iraqi forces, the intensified violence on two fronts — one Sunni, one Shiite — has forced the U.S. military to consider sending more troops to Iraq and to postpone the removal of forces who are due to rotate out. “You can be certain that if they want more troops, we will sign deployment orders so that they’ll have the troops they need,” said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who insisted Wednesday that fighting was not spinning out of control.The continuing rotation in Iraq gives U.S. forces an advantage by having about 20,000 more troops than would otherwise be there. The United States has about 135,000 troops in Iraq. Allies have about 26,500 more. Mosque battle
In Fallujah, Marines battled again around the Abdel-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque, which Marine Capt. James Edge said insurgents were still using as a base despite a six-hour battle the day before to uproot them. Helicopters were deployed to support the Marines, he said. Capping Wednesday’s battle, a U.S. Cobra helicopter fired a missile at the base of the mosque’s minaret, and an F-16 dropped a laser-guided bomb at the wall, allowing Marines to move in and seize the site, Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne said.  | FREE VIDEO |
| | • Fighting continues; hostages held
April 8: The resistance in Fallujah was encouraging other towns in the Sunni Triangle to join the fight. NBC’s Tom Aspell reports.Nightly News |
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“I understand there was a large casualty toll taken by the enemy,” said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the deputy chief of military operations in Iraq. He said U.S. Marines did not attack the mosque until it became clear that enemy fighters were inside and were using it to cover their attacks — nullifying the holy site’s protections under the Geneva Conventions. The battle began Wednesday morning, when gunmen in the mosque opened fire on a U.S. patrol, wounding five Marines, Byrne said. Marines control 25 percent of Fallujah, a city of 200,000 people, Byrne said. Thousands of Iraqis marched the 30 miles from Baghdad to Fallujah to deliver food and medical supplies to its residents, who have been under a nighttime curfew and surrounded by U.S. forces since early Monday morning. A committee of Sunni clerics organized the march. Marchers — carrying colorful flags and banners reading, “Sons of the great Fallujah, we are with you on the road of jihad [holy war] and victory” — came upon the Marine cordon on the western entrance to the city. After searching the vehicles for weapons, the Marines allowed two ambulances full of medical supplies, two minibuses carrying vegetables and other food and a dozen cars with Sunni clerics and officials to enter the city. Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said fighting in Iraq came in two broad categories. Shiite militia fights for control
West of Baghdad, in cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi — where 12 Marines were killed Tuesday — the main opposition is “former regime loyalists,” including supporters of former President Saddam Hussein and anti-U.S. foreign fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born terrorist believed linked to al-Qaida, he said. The fighting in the south — which spread Wednesday for the first time to central Iraq — is waged by the Shiite Al-Mahdi militia, which launched a wave of attacks against coalition troops in southern cities and Baghdad this week. Overnight, al-Sadr militiamen battled with Polish troops in Karbala throughout the night and with Spaniards in Diwaniya and Najaf. Nine Iraqis were killed in Karbala, the Poles said. In Baghdad, U.S. forces before dawn struck and damaged al-Sadr’s office in his stronghold, the sprawling Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, residents said. Rumsfeld discounted the strength of al-Sadr’s militia. “There’s nothing like an army,” he said Wednesday. “You have a small number of terrorists and militias coupled with some protests.” U.S. officials estimated al-Sadr’s force at 3,000 fighters. But the black-garbed gunmen of the al-Mahdi Army virtually controlled the southern cities of Kut and Kufa and were in partial control of Najaf. Al-Sadr fighters battled U.S. troops in the town of Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad — the farthest north that the Shiite violence has reached. ‘Another Vietnam’
Al-Sadr — who is said to be holed up in his office in Najaf, surrounded by gunmen — issued a statement saying Iraq would become “another Vietnam” for the United States. Sanchez rejected the comparison. “I don’t see any shadows of Vietnam in Iraq,” he said. “It’s two totally different battlefields, and I would not even begin to characterize this as a Vietnam for American forces.” Al-Sadr and his militia are unpopular among most of Iraq’s Shiite majority, and there was no sign that the Shiite public in the south was rallying to their side to launch a wider uprising. But the week’s fighting showed a strength that few expected from the al-Mahdi militia. The country’s most respected Shiite leader, who had been silent until Wednesday, called for all sides to stop fighting. “Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani condemned the methods used by occupation forces in the current escalating situation in Iraq. ... We also condemn assaults on public and private property, and any action that disturbs order and prevents officials from carrying out their duties,” a statement said. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. | MORE FROM IRAQ AFTER SADDAM |
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