Troops fortify their positions while they wait
By: DARRIN MORTENSON - Staff Writer
FALLUJAH, Iraq ---- U.S. Marines spent much of the day Thursday strengthening their positions in this embattled city and coming to grips with their surreal surroundings at the edge of this ghost town that continues to fight back.
A Marine sniper who claimed 22 "kills" in the past week got his 23rd Thursday, finally silencing a rebel gunner who he said had harassed his unit for days.
Goats have taken to rooftops, and cows lounge in the streets like dogs. A Marine sauntered down an alleyway holding a chicken by the feet. He said he planned to pluck it and prepare it for supper in the kitchen of his squad's commandeered home.
Another Marine on guard atop a roof marveled at the gang warfare waged by wild dogs in the empty streets below where farm animals are now without the protection of their owners and easy prey for the canines running amok.
Two troops traveled the long way from one position to another, detouring through a small cemetery and over a trash heap in the blowing sand to get a peek at "George" ---- the name they've given to an especially bloated and torn body propped up against a wall near a dead dog.
Another corpse is right up the street, they say. The neighboring houses also have their bodies, and stories, if you take the time to look.
While Thursday was probably the quietest day in Fallujah in more than a week, it was still the scene of some fighting as both sides fired from windows and rooftops and insurgents shot mortars at the Marines from positions inside and outside the cordon.
A Marine was seriously wounded Thursday when a roadside bomb exploded near a humvee. And a rifle company of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment was hit with mortar rounds fired from within the city where, Marines say, between 1,000 and 4,000 insurgents are trapped within the cordon held by the Marines for more than a week.
Rockets struck other Marine units to the south later Thursday, but there were no reports of Marine casualties.
The attacks continue to illustrate the failure of a fragile cease-fire arranged last weekend to give tribal and political leaders time to avoid what many say will be a bloodbath if Marines have to take the city by force.
The Marines say they stand ready to take the offensive.
"We're sticking with the cordon," said Lt. Col. Gregg Olson, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, based at Camp Pendleton. "We've basically locked down northwest Fallujah and remain focused on that mission."
Olson said that because the Marines have been committed in large numbers to the rural neighborhood on the fringes of Fallujah, more and more locals are coming forth with information on the whereabouts of insurgents' supply routes.
"That's the kind of cooperation this will take," he said, "working hand in hand with the Iraqi people who believe in a peaceful future for a free Iraq that is governed by Iraqis."
Late Thursday night, a U.S. Air Force Spectre gunship, which is at the disposal of American special operations units and the Marines in Fallujah, pounded several targets with howitzers, cannon and Gatling guns.
Like terrible thunderclaps, the gunships struck at the city below.
Sparks shot from distant impacts and columns of thick, black smoke rose from the darkened city.
Koranic verses blared from several mosques, providing a soundtrack to the violence.
Officials say there's no way to verify what "he" or "Spectre" ---- as the troops reverently call the gunship ---- has destroyed.
It was another night in Fallujah, a place where sunrise is greeted as often with gunfire as it is with the crows of roosters and the days are marked by tallying the day's mortar attacks.
Staff writer Darrin Mortenson and staff photographer Hayne Palmour are reporting from Iraq, where they are with Camp Pendleton Marines. Their coverage is collected at
www.nctimes.com/military/iraq.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/200...7_074_15_04.txt
Ellie