'This is more like a real war'

2004-04-08 12:21

Ned Parker

Fallujah - Corpses littered the streets of Fallujah on Thursday as US marines met ferocious resistance in the Sunni Muslim bastion.

As the marines inched forward block-by-block taking sniper fire and hit-and-run attacks with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, a US medic said the resistance was more intense than in last year's invasion.

After two days of ferocious fighting, the marines had managed to move just two kilometres through an industrial zone of the edge of the town.

The flames of exploding rockets lit the sky as the marines came under repeated mortar and RPG fire from factories, homes and mosques, some of it from areas supposedly already cleared.

"MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) is the most intense kind of fighting," said the battalion's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne.

'This is like Vietnam'

"And this is like Hue City in Vietnam," he said referring to the former imperial capital where in 1968 US troops faced the most ferocious street fighting of the communists' decisive Tet offensive.

Marines who had taken part in the defeat of Saddam Hussein's armed forces a year ago, said the resistance they were facing in Fallujah was tougher than anything thrown at them by the old regime's once feared Republican Guards.

"Last year, we'd take an objective, secure it and go to sleep," recalled medic Percy Da Vila, 29, of the First Batallion Fifth Marines.

'More like a real war'

"But this is relentless. This is more like a real war."

Captain Chris Chown said the Iraqis were fighting back with hit-and-run tactics and snipers.

"It's tough. One by one they can't stand up to the US military force so they are using all the scenery available to them," Chown told a reporter embedded with the unit.

"One guy can basically hold down a whole squad. He shoots from one window and pops in another. They are fierce and very determined but they can't shoot straight. They are basically spraying and praying."

But Chown expressed concern that the outgunned Iraqis could end up winning the battle of public opinion if the fighting continues.

"I hope one day we don't get so jaded we just roll down the streets in armoured vehicles shooting at whatever moves," she said.

"We are at a crossroads in Fallujah. You get to a critical juncture where one small event is going to tip things for us or against us. If we're not there already, we're getting pretty close."

- AFP