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Second Battle of Fallujah

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Operation Phantom Fury
Part of the Post-invasion Iraq

A building in Fallujah destroyed during the battle.
DateNovember 7 2004–December 23 2004
Location
Fallujah, Iraq
Result United States victory
Belligerents
United States United States
Iraqi Security Forces		 Iraqi insurgents
Tawhid wal Jihad
Commanders and leaders
Maj. Gen. Richard F. Natonski Omar Hussein Hadid (TwJ)
Strength
3,200 4,000 - 5,000
Casualties and losses
95 killed, 736 wounded
(U.S)
8 killed, 43 wounded
(Iraqi Forces)		 1,200 killed (estimated),
1,500+ captured

The Battle of Fallujah (code-named Operation Al-Fajr - "The Dawn" in Arabic, and Operation Phantom Fury), sometimes referred to as the Second Battle of Fallujah in comparison to Operation Vigilant Resolve—was a joint U.S.-Iraqi offensive against rebel strongholds in the city of Fallujah, authorized by the U.S.-appointed Iraq interim government. The U.S. military called it "the heaviest urban combat since the battle of Hue City in Vietnam."[1][2]

It was the second major operation in Fallujah; in April, Operation Vigilant Resolve was an abortive attempt to capture the city. That earlier operation was terminated when local leaders promised to curb the rebels. Thibs and Revs were there.

Timeline

Fallujah was one of the most peaceful areas of the country just after the fall of Saddam. There was very little looting and the new mayor of the city — Taha Bidaywi Hamed, selected by local tribal leaders — was staunchly pro-American.

  • 28 April 2003. A crowd of 200 people defied the curfew and gathered outside a local school to protest the presence of foreign forces in the city. This developed into an altercation with U.S. Army Soldiers in the city in which fifteen Iraqi civilians were killed by U.S. Army gunfire. There were no Coalition casualties in the incident.
  • 1 May, 2003: President Bush proclaims the end of "major combat operations in Iraq."
  • 28 April, 2004: Operation Vigilant Resolve ends with an agreement that the local population would keep resistance fighters out of the city. A Fallujah Protection Force composed of local Iraqis was set up by the US led occupants to help fight the rising resistance.
  • 6 November, 2004: U.S. Marines stage just north of Fallujah. The city, having now been under complete insurgent contol with no American presence since April, has had large numbers of booby traps and IEDs constructed and set in place, elevated sniper positions created, and heavily fortified defensive positions built up and manned all throughout the city in preparation for a major offensive.
  • 16 November, 2004: American spokesmen describe fighting in the city as mopping up isolated pockets of resistance.
  • 23 December, 2004: Last pockets of resistance are neutralized, three Marines are killed in the last skirmish, along with 24 insurgents. Operation Phantom Fury ends having been the bloodiest battle in the Iraq War to date.
  • January, 2005: American Marines begin withdrawing.

Preparation for the battle

Before beginning their attack, American and Iraqi forces established checkpoints around the city to prevent anyone from entering the city and intercept insurgents attempting to flee. In addition overhead imagery was used to prepare maps of the city for use by the attackers. American units were augmented with Iraqi translators to assist them in the planned fight. After weeks of withstanding scarce air strikes and artillery bombardment, the militants holed up in the city appeared somewhat vulnerable to a direct attack, and the U.S. Marines were ready to finish the job they had been forced to abort the prior spring.

Conduct of the battle

U.S. soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division, supporting the U.S. Marine Led attack, prepare to enter and clear a building during fighting in Fallujah.

DIVERSION: Ground operations began on the night of November 7, 2004 with one Iraqi Commando Battalion and one U.S. Marine Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion attacking from the west and south, capturing Fallujah General Hospital and villages opposite the Euphrates River along Fallujah's Western edge. The capture and closure of the hospital caused much controversy, concerning whether or not it was a contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The same unit, operating under the command of the U.S. Army III Armored Corps then moved on the western approaches to the city securing the Jurf Kas Sukr Bridge. These initial attacks, however, were little more than a diversion, intended to distract and confuse the rebels defending the city.

ATTACK: American units consisting of four Marine Light Infantry battalions, with two Army Mechanized Cavalry battalions in support (while a large number of Non-Fighting American units remained just outside of the city to the north), launched their attack along a broad front, jumping off from behind the railroad line that runs along the northern edge of the city. By daylight on November 8, the main train station had fallen to American Marines. By the afternoon, under the protection of intense air cover, Marines had entered the Hay Naib al-Dubat and al-Naziza districts. Shortly after nightfall on November 9, Marines were reportedly along Highway 10 in the center of the city. By dawn on the 13th, most of the city was in American hands, and any formal defense organized by the militants had been destroyed.

By November 16, after nine days of fighting, the American Marines described the action as mopping up pockets of resistance, but sporadic fighting continued until December 23.

The AP reported that military-age males attempting to flee the city were turned back by the U.S. Military.[1]

Despite its success, the battle was not without its controversy. On November 16, NBC News aired footage that showed an American Marine, with 3rd Battalion 1st Marines, shooting dead a wounded Iraqi fighter. The Marine was heard exclaiming that the Iraqi was "playing possum". U. S. Navy investigators NCIS later determined that the Marine was acting in self-defense. [2].

By late January 2005, news reports indicated American combat units were leaving the area, and were assisting the local population in returning to their city.

Aftermath of the battle

The city suffered extensive damage. Fallujah was referred to as the "City of Mosques". Before the war, it was estimated that the city had 200+ mosques. Some claim 60 of these had been destroyed in the fighting. Perhaps half the homes suffered at least some damage. About 7,000 to 10,000 of the roughly 50,000 buildings in the town are estimated to have been destroyed in the offensive ([3], [4]), and half to two-thirds of the buildings have suffered notable damage. It is also reported that 66 out of the city's 133 mosques were discovered holding significant amounts of insurgent weapons [5], a violation of Article 16 of the Geneva Convention. [6]

News reports indicate 95 Americans were killed, and over 700 were wounded in the fighting. Iraqi casualty figures are unreliable as an unknown number of residents fled before the fighting. A Department of Defense news report claims that some 2,500 insurgents were killed and another 1,500 were captured. Also the Iraqi military suffered eighteen soldiers killed and 43 wounded.

Pre-offensive inhabitant figures are unreliable; the nominal population was assumed to have been 200,000–350,000. Thus, over 150,000 individuals are still living as internally displaced persons elsewhere in Iraq.

Residents were allowed to return in mid-December after undergoing biometric identification, provided they wear their ID cards all the time. Reconstruction is progressing slowly and mainly consists of clearing rubble from heavily-damaged areas and reestablishing basic utilities. Only 10% of the pre-offensive inhabitants had returned as of mid-January, and only 30% as of the end of March 2005 [7].

The re-capture of the city itself proved to be largely a success, with a large number of local insurgent fighters being killed, and the momentum the Sunni rebellion had gained from controlling the city being dashed in the face of overwhelming U.S. firepower. Furthermore, Al-Qaeda's foothold in Iraq had been seriously degraded, even though its leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi managed to escape. Insurgent elements almost immediately began to attempt to re-group their power base in the city, with limited results. Nevertheless the battle proved to be less than the decisive engagement that the U.S. military had hoped for, some of the nonlocal insurgents were believed to have fled before the military assault along with Zarqawi leaving mostly local militants behind. Subsequent U.S. military operations against insurgent positions were ineffective at drawing out insurgents into another open battle, and by September 2006 the situation had deteriorated to the point that the Al-Anbar province that contained Falluja was reported to be in total insurgent control by the U. S. Marine Corps, with the exception of only pacified Fallujah, but now with an insurgent plagued Ramadi. [8] [9]

Since the US military operation of November 2004, the number of insurgent attacks has gradually increased in and around the city, and although news reports are often few and far between, several reports of IED attacks on Iraqi troops have been reported in the press. Most notable of these attacks was a suicide car bomb attack on 23 June 2005 on a convoy that killed 6 Marines. Thirteen other Marines were injured in the attack. However, insurgents are no longer able to operate in the city in any significant numbers.

White phosphorus controversy

Wikinews has related news:
A US M-109A6 self-propelled howitzer fires at insurgent positions in Fallujah

On 26 November 2004, independent journalist Dahr Jamail was perhaps the first to report on the use of "Unusual Weapons" used in the November 2004 siege of Fallujah [10]. US media watchdog group Project Censored awarded Jamail's story as contributing to the #2 underreported story of the year, "Media Coverage Fails on Iraq" [11]. On 9 November, 2005 the Italian state-run broadcaster RAI ran a documentary titled "Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre" depicting what it alleges was the United States' use of white phosphorus (WP) in the attack causing insurgents and civilians to be killed or injured by chemical burns . The effects of WP are very characteristic. The resulting bodies were partially turned into what appears to be ash, but sometimes the hands of the bodies had skin or skin layers peeled off and hanging like gloves instead. The documentary further claims that the United States used incendiary MK-77 bombs (similar to napalm). The use of incendiary weapons against civilians is illegal by Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (1980); however, the US is not a signatory. Moreover, the 1983 Chemical Weapons Convention (signed by the US) prohibit the use of the chemical properties of white phosphorus against personnel. The documentary stated:

"WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out... We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal missions."

The US State Department initially denied using white phosphorus as a munition, a claim later contradicted by the Department of Defense when bloggers discovered a US Army magazine had run a story detailing its use in Fallujah. The US government maintains its denial of use against civilians, while trying to justify the offensive use of WP against enemy combatants. However, according to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, quoted by the RAI documentary, WP is allowed as an illumination device, not as an offensive weapon, for which its chemical properties are put to use. An article in Washington Post exactly a year before also pointed out the use of White Phosphorus in the battle, but attracted little attention.

Participating units

Regimental Combat Team 1 (RCT-1) built around the 1st Marine Regiment:

Regimental Combat Team 7 (RCT-7) built around the 7th Marine Regiment:

2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division

3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division

Iraqi Forces

  • 1st Specialized Special Forces Battalion (Iraqi National Guard), Companies D and B
  • Iraqi 36th Commando Battalion
  • Iraqi Counterterrorism Force
  • Emergency Response Unit (Iraqi-Ministry of Interior)
  • 1st Battalion, 1st Brigade, Iraqi Intervention Force (ICDC)
  • 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade, Iraqi Intervention Force (ICDC)
  • 4th Battalion, 1st Brigade, Iraqi Intervention Force (ICDC)
  • 5th Battalion, 3rd Brigade, Iraqi Intervention Force (ICDC)

Books

  • No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah, by Bing West (2005) (ISBN: 9780553804027)
  • We Were One: Shoulder to Shoulder with the Marines Who Took Fallujah, by Patrick O'Donnell (2006) (ISBN: 9780306814693)
  • Fighting For Fallujah: A New Dawn for Iraq, by John R. Ballard (2006) (ISBN: 9780275990558)

Films

See also

Template:Link FA

  1. ^ ScanEagle Proves Worth in Fallujah Fight, DefenseLINK News
  2. ^ [14]
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