The Enemy Starts to Collapse

Enemy resistance in Fallujah is starting to collapse, with US
forces deep inside the city and fighters pulling back to their ultimate
stronghold in the Jolan district. There is no more room to retreat with the
Euphrates to the west and American forces on every side.

Troops have been advancing towards the center, fighting insurgents armed
with rifles and mortars street by street. Early on Tuesday the US-led troops
reached a key objective early -- a mosque in the north part of Falluja. ...
The BBC's Paul Wood, embedded with US soldiers - and whose reporting is
subject to military restrictions - says US-led forces reached their first
major objective early on Tuesday, when they surrounded al-Hidra mosque in the
northern parts of Falluja. The US military said the building was being used as
an arms depot and a meeting point for the leaders of the insurgency. Our
correspondent says Iraqi forces fighting alongside US marines will storm it.

Earlier, a US tank commander said guerrillas were putting up a strong fight
in the north-western Jolan district. "These people are hardcore,"
Capt Robert Bodisch told Reuters news agency. "A man pulled out from
behind a wall and fired an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) at my tank. I have
to get another tank to go back in there."

"I can see heavy street-fighting from my house in the center of the
city -- US soldiers are here, moving from house to house", according to
BBC reporter Fadil Badrani.

A synoptic view of the same engagement comes from Ned Parker in the Australian.

US troops moved from house to house through the Jolan neighbourhood of
Fallujah yesterday, knocking down walls and spraying machinegun fire at
buildings from which insurgents fought back with small arms and mortars. The
US forces, supported by Iraqi soldiers, pushed towards the centre of the
besieged rebel city as columns of smoke plumed skyward after a night of heavy
air raids and artillery shelling. "We are downing them," said US
marine officer Major Todd Desgrosseilliers. "We're using good old
American firepower."

A smattering of trained Iraqi forces accompanied the marines in their
assault on the city, while more were poised on the outskirts, preparing to
enter in an offensive codenamed Phantom Fury. Helicopter gunships swooped
overhead, dropping flares on buildings from where the muzzles of insurgent
rocket launchers jutted out, while the rebels fought back with anti-aircraft
fire. White and red flashes lit the sky in a relentless barrage of artillery
shells and aerial bombing that thundered throughout the night.

Mortars are what the enemy has for reserves, the only part of their firepower
that remains mobile on the Fallujah battlefield because its high-angle fire
allows it to shoot over obstacles in built up areas. Enemy forces have also been
known to volley RPGs upward into neighboring streets. But their fire is largely
blind. They have no comms and direction centers to mass fires or shift them as
the battle progresses. The BBC press account indicates that heavy armor has
actually penetrated deep inside the city (with an armor company commander joking
about the disabling of his vehicle) with infantry progressing over and through
the walls of houses on either side (probably what the BBC reporter is describing
as 'moving from house to house').

Today's news will tell whether American commanders have decided to keep up
the tempo and profit from enemy confusion or slow down and reduce the remainder
by fire. One of the factors will be the condition of the Iraqi troops fighting
alongside Americans. As suggested in the article above, Iraqi troops are
employed to clean out areas like mosques that have been bypassed by US forces.
This is dangerous and exhausting work. The limited number of trained Iraqi
troops may enforce a limit on tempo. As the enemy fragments it will become a
battle of small unit holdouts in dozens of locations. Each enemy position is
doomed but they will take time to clean out.

Readers will remember that Fallujah is only a part of the wider campaign in
the Sunni triangle. Chester
has pointed out that the 3rd Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, identified as
fighting at Fallujah, was detached from Ramadi. The enemy is now trying to
relieve pressure on Fallujah with demonstration attacks in Ramadi, where they
may have sensed the departure of the battalion. This has taken the form of a
repulsed car
bomb attack on checkpoints controlling access to the city and low level
skirmishing. This report from the AP
describes how two enemy vehicles were destroyed as they bore down on a
checkpoint.

The military says five U-S troops have been injured after they attacked two
suspected car bombs in the Iraqi city of Ramadi. It also says seven insurgents
were killed in yesterday's attack. It gave few other details, but says the U-S
troops wounded had shot at and destroyed the vehicles.

In a portentous development, the Marines have apparently withdrawn their
observation posts inside Ramadi. Middle
East Online reports:

Rebel fighters massed in the centre of the restive Iraqi city of Ramadi
Tuesday after US military snipers withdrew from their positions following
24 hours of clashes, an AFP correspondent said. The US military could not
immediately be contacted for comment.

US snipers left a hotel from where they were able to control most of
Ramadi's main roads, but the military remained in its headquarters in the
governor's office nearby, the correspondent said. Other US soldiers left the
city for their bases in the east and west of the city.

As the snipers departed, large crowds of armed insurgents, their faces
hidden by scarves, began dancing in the street and shooting in to the air,
yelling "Allah Akbar" (God is great). Banners proclaiming solidarity
with insurgents in Fallujah, where US-led forces launched a massive offensive
to retake the city on Monday, were hung in the streets. "The residents of
Ramadi condemn the attack against Fallujah and we appeal to the inhabitants of
Ramadi to wage jihad against the American occupants who want to eradicate
Islam," said one man who did not want to be named.

An earlier generation of historians would call the withdrawal of snipers
"bringing in the pickets" and concentrating the fist. The feeble enemy
response suggests a real weakness. The car bomb attack and public demonstration
of "fighters" who are apparently unable to hinder the comings and
goings of snipers will be portrayed as a great jihadi victory but is
pathetic in reality. They are being measured for a pine box and the best they
can do is caper in the streets. In a few days 3rd Battalion will be back in
Ramadi, together with powerful units currently busy in Fallujah and the dance
tempo will change to a funeral march unless the enemy lays down his arms. Wellington
once observed that "nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy
as a battle won." Nothing about it is nice; but better them than us.

Update

An Agence
France Press report describes the terrible closed loop of networked
firepower. For the first time in a major battle, guided artillery is being used
quantity. In addition to the now familiar JDAMs, or GPS guided bombs, there are
now GPS guided shells. Space based positioning satellites, laser range finding,
robotics and networked computing are now as much a part of infantry combat as
the boot heel.

"Body parts everywhere!" cries a US soldier as a shell crashes
onto a group of suspected rebels in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, where a
punishing torrent of firepower thundered down on Tuesday.

More than 500 rounds of 155-millimetre Howitzer cannon shells have been
fired on the besieged Sunni stronghold west of Baghdad since a US-Iraqi
offensive to take control of the city started on Monday evening, said Sergeant
Michael Hamby. Using a global positioning system, each shell is precision
aimed and fired at insurgent spots, while unmanned reconnaisance aircraft
check whether the target was hit and feed back the information, Hamby told AFP.

"We probably had 20-to-30 air strikes in the Jolan and probably
two-to-three times that in artillery missions," he said. Attack
helicopters swooped overhead, dropping flares on buildings from where the
muzzle of insurgent rocket heads jutted out.

Though the enemy is to be frank, very brave, news reports them falling
back everywhere. The Washington
Post says:

Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, commander of multinational forces in Iraq,
predicted "several more days of tough urban fighting." He said
insurgents were "fighting hard, but not to the death. They are falling
back," adding that the U.S. advance was progressing "ahead of
schedule."

The enemy withdrawals have sometimes been explained by suggesting that the
enemy is suckering in US forces into a trap. But this is impossible. Their backs
are to the river and the Marines are across that. Every retrograde movement
compresses the enemy into a smaller area and forces them to leave behind
prepared positions painstakingly stockpiled with food, batteries and ammo.
Running backward with wounded, they can't carry much ammunition and won't find
any unless a prepared position is already available. And how does anyone stand
fast in the face of the otherworldly
violence of the American onslaught?

Small bands of gunmen -- fewer than 20 -- were engaging U.S. troops, then
falling back in the face of overwhelming fire from American tanks, 20mm
cannons and heavy machine guns, said Time magazine reporter Michael Ware,
embedded with troops. Ware reported that there appeared to be no civilians in
the area he was in. On one thoroughfare in the city, U.S. troops traded fire
with gunmen holed up in a row of houses about 100 yards away. An American
gunner on an armored vehicle let loose with his machine gun, grinding the
upper part of a small building to rubble.

This is a description of platoon-sized enemy units attempting to hold back
the Martians. The bravado of Al Jazeera has this completely wrong. If classical
history were still widely taught, these scenes would be instantly recognizable
as a rout, that terrible disintegration of ranks as the foe closes in before and
behind. Describing the rout of the Roman Legions by Hannibal at Cannae, Livy
wrote:

It was a terrible slaughter. ... On a narrow area 48,000 corpses lay in
heaps. ... Hannibal once more released non-Roman prisoners. ... Roman knight's
gold rings were collected in baskets and later poured out onto the floor of
the Carthaginian senate. One of the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paulus (and one of
the preceding year's) were killed, as well as both quaestors of the consuls,
29 out of 48 military tribunes and 80 other senators.

There can be no joy in war: it is always repulsive in actual detail, but if
we are not left with the facts, then the world is deprived even of the doleful
experience of the battlefield. The jihadi dream was a fraud. September 11
opened the door, not to Paradise but the portal to Hell and the jihadi
nightmare will continue for as long as they are nourished on illusion and false
encouragement. We are not their permanent enemies; that foe is within their
breast.