Fallujah*
...ic was on the retreat pulling his militiamen out of the city during a cease fire in Fallujah. A hospital said that over 600 Iraqis were killed in Fallujah alone. It was mostly women, children, and the elderly. U.S. aircraft hammered insurgents with machine guns, rockets, and cannons. A Marine commander said that the truce was at a near collapse. Marine Captain, Jason Smith described a four-hour battle to rescue fellow Marine’s trapped by an ambush the night before as a “wasp’s nest”. This battle in Fallujah has become a very bloody one. Women have lost their husbands, fiancés, children have lost their mothers and father, husbands have lost their wives and many elderly have been killed. These people haven’t just died because they are in the Iraqi militia, they have died because of the on going bloody battle. Since the war began on March 19, 2003 686 U.S. service members have died. Four hundred and ninety-two have died from hostile action and one hundred and ninety-four died from accidents and non-combat related incidents. The Iraqi government is supposed to be taken back control of by Iraqi officials in June. However U.S. officials said that the security conditions in Iraq must improve significantly before anything can be done. Finally, four American contractors were killed and mutilated in Fallujah, and a U.S. general vowed to not let the deaths go unpunished. All in all there has been a very big death toll and hopefully the U.S. can resolve the conflict in Iraq. This war has become so terrible that televised images have captured another response after enemy forces attacked coalition defensive positions in Fallujah in late April . Troops on the ground called for close-air support, and coalition air belongings fired on a flatbed truck and sedan, setting off secondary explosions that lasted at least 20 minutes due to the large amount of ammunition the vehicles carried. The insurgents fled to a nearby building, and when coalition aircraft fired on it, large amounts of ordnance being stored inside set off big secondary explosions. Lastly there have been reports of prisoner abuse and there have been pictures of the prisoners in questionable positions. This war needs to come to an end before it gets any worse and the death toll in Fallujah rises even higher. Fallujah is a large town forty miles west of Baghdad. It is one of Iraq’s most dangerous cities. since early April 2003 they have experienced violent crowd control incidents, murders and bombings. More than six hundred American soldiers have been killed in this on going battle in Iraq. In the month of April more than forty seven U.S. soldiers were killed. Since March the battles have grown in intensity. The fighting in Fallujah has turned bloody. An appeal for the Iraqi insurgents in the city to turn in all rocket propelled grenades and weapons was made directly to the city leaders of Fallujah. The marines warned that if the deal fell through, they would launch and all out assault on Fallujah. In light of the peace efforts there was trouble as Fallujahan guerrillas launched a heavy attack on Marines in a battle that killed almost 20 insurgents. A U.S. AC-130 gunship raked insurgents after hundreds of women and children fled the besieged city. Gunmen were running wild on the western edge of the city and they killed a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi driver and caused an explosion when they hit a fuel convoy. The U.S. Marines attacked a mosque in Fallujah in an attempt to calm the disturbed city. Witnesses say that at least 40 Iraqis who had gathered to pray were killed. As of April 14 35 Americans, 2 other soldiers in the coalition and 230 Iraqis were killed fighting in Fallujah. In Fallujah, gunmen shot down an AH-64 heliocopter. The civilians of Fallujah carried the bodies of their dead to the city’s soccer stadium. All of the bodies were buried under the field. The civilians were unable to bury them in a cemetery because of the U.S siege of the city. As the fight for Fallujah entered a 5th day, hundreds of women, children, and elders fled the city. Marines ordered Iraqi men of military age to stay behind. The U.S. troops and Iraqi guerrillas battled in an alleyway in Fallujah. This battle killed a U.S. Marine, at least five Iraqis, and an ABC news cameraman. Insurgents and rebellious Shiites mounted a string of attacks, and U.S. Marines launched a major attack on the Sunni city of Fallujah. Up to a dozen Marines and 2 more coalition soldiers and at least 66 Iraqis were reported killed. Another Marine died in Fallujah, which brought the U.S. death toll to 40. A radical Shiite cleric was on the retreat pu...