Fallujah under troops’ control

FALLUJAH, Iraq – U.S. commanders said they had established at least loose control over almost all of Fallujah on Saturday, and estimated that 1,600 insurgents had been killed during the six-day battle to reclaim the city from the rebels.

As Marine units continued to press southward through the city, 1st Marine Division commander Maj. Gen. Richard F. Natonski said the battle had come down to “pockets of determined resistance” by increasingly hemmed-in militants.

Firefights continued throughout the city, but at a diminished pace from recent days, commanders reported.

“There are no high-fives yet,” said Lt. Col. Gareth Brandl, commander of the 1st Battalion of the 8th Marine Regiment, which has seen some of the fiercest fighting. “This thing’s not over.”

But as the fighting eased in Fallujah, U.S. and Iraqi forces massed in preparation for a push against insurgents who control parts of another Iraqi city. After a two-day rampage by rebels in the northern city of Mosul, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi vowed to re-establish full government control in the coming days.

Another Iraqi official, Minister of State Qassim Daoud, declared that the assault on Fallujah was over.

“Major operations have been brought to a conclusion,” said Daoud, the de facto national security adviser.

Daoud also lashed out at Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi and cleric Abdullah Janabi, who are believed to have left Fallujah before the U.S. invasion, calling them “cowards” for “leaving their followers to bear the burden” of the massive assault.

The new estimate of enemy dead in Fallujah – reported by several U.S. military intelligence officials – is significantly more than the 600 reported earlier this week by U.S. commanders and also exceeds the Iraqi government’s estimate of just over 1,000.

U.S. officials acknowledge that their count, based on reports turned in by forces on the ground, are rough estimates. Many of the estimated dead were killed by bombing, shelling and long-distance fire, making accurate counts very difficult. Insurgent groups have accused U.S. troops of consistently inflating rebel casualties. But if the 1,600 number is accurate, it would mean that a significant portion of the guerrilla force ensconced here before the invasion had been eliminated. Up to 5,000 insurgents were said to have been amassed in Fallujah in advance of the assault.

U.S. officials could provide no breakdown of how many of the dead were Iraqis and how many were some of the foreign fighters who are believed to have concentrated here.

At least 22 U.S. troops have died in the invasion, and hundreds have been wounded.

In his weekly radio address, President Bush hailed the “significant progress” made in the Fallujah operation and praised the efforts of the Iraqi security forces fighting alongside U.S. troops. He predicted continuing violence in the runup to parliamentary elections scheduled for late January but expressed confidence in an ultimate victory.

“The terrorists will be defeated, Iraq will be free, and the world will be more secure,” Bush said. “The defeat of terror in Iraq will set that nation on a course to lasting freedom, and will give hope to millions, and the Iraqi people know it.”

International concern has been mounting for the fate of civilians trapped in Fallujah, a city that has no running water, power or deliveries of food. Great swaths of the city have been reduced to debris and bombed-out, shot-up structures.

Fifteen tons of government medical supplies and equipment were delivered to Fallujah on Saturday, and hospitals in Baghdad and the nearby town of Abu Ghraib stood ready to treat additional casualties, Health Minister Aladin Alwan said. Fallujah General Hospital had emerged unscathed from the fighting and was now “stacked with all the equipment and materials they need,” he said.

An Iraqi Red Crescent aid convoy, including five supply trucks and three ambulances, also reached Fallujah after a three-day wait. Red Crescent spokesman Firdoos Abadi, according to a Reuters report, described conditions in the city as “catastrophic.”

Some accused U.S. forces of blocking the arrival of medical aid. Ambulance driver Salman Mohammed, 45, told a reporter that his convoy had been stopped for four hours and then turned away by U.S. troops at a checkpoint on the eastern edge of the city.

“We told them that we came to help the people, so they told us that there are only mujahedin in the city and no civilians there, and they accused us of helping the mujahedin,” Mohammed said.

No one knows how many civilians remain in the city, which once had a population approaching 300,000 but was largely abandoned in the runup to the U.S. invasion. Health Minister Alwan said ministry reports indicated that just 14 civilians had been treated for injuries – a number that seems improbably low, even considering the pre-assault exodus.

Most remaining civilians appeared to have stayed in their homes. Marines say they are encouraging civilians to remain behind closed doors and are providing water and food rations when needed.

But some groups of civilians have come into the streets, sometimes hoisting white flags and approaching U.S. troops. Commanders are seeking to discourage the practice, in part because of fears the flags may be a ruse used by guerrillas.

Dozens of fighters continued to surrender, Marines reported, an indicator that the insurgents’ will to fight against overwhelming force may be flagging.

“Reports from captured enemy say Fallujah is lost,” one U.S. military intelligence official said. “Morale has plummeted. … They feel vulnerable.”

Marines in much of the city were concentrating on clearing suspect homes and other buildings and securing some of the scores of weapons caches that are stashed in residences, businesses and other facilities throughout the city.

“We just walked in here and there it was,” Marine Sgt. Ben Eggersdorfer, 21, said as he stood amid a large weapons cache in a building only a block from the government center in downtown Fallujah. “They have enough here to do whatever they want.”

Arrayed on the ground were a small army’s weapons: dozens of mortar rounds, rockets, machine guns, blasting caps and other bomb-making material. A rear bedroom was stacked with medical equipment and appeared to have been used as a clinic for the injured.

An adjacent house yielded gas masks, raw chemicals and a laboratory for processing chemicals. It was not immediately clear what the chemicals were intended to be used for.

In Mosul, Iraqi National Guardsmen and a Marine battalion dispatched from Fallujah stood poised to push into militant-held areas. Insurgents on Thursday and Friday attacked nine police stations and routed local security forces in a show of strength.

There was little or no Iraqi or U.S. military presence visible inside the city Saturday. But Daoud, the national security adviser, denied that the government had lost its grip on the restive northern city just as Fallujah was being tamed.

“Just because a bunch of gangsters attacked police stations and declared that they were under their control for not more than two hours does not mean that the government has lost control,” he said. Allawi also downplayed the extent of the Mosul unrest, saying that only “one side” of the city was in militant hands.