US estimates 600 insurgents killed
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-11-11 22:21

An estimated 600 insurgents have been killed since the start of the battle of Fallujah on Monday night, the U.S. military said Thursday.

US soldiers search for insurgents in this TV image as U.S. and Iraqi forces exchanged fire with pockets of resistance in Fallujah, Iraq, on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2004. Throughout the day, Americans hit the militants with artillery and mortars, and warplanes fired on the city's main street and market as well as the insurgent stronghold of Jolan, one of several neighborhoods where troops were skirmishing with militants. [AP]

The estimated death toll for the three and a half-day U.S. onslaught would be a substantial number of the 1,200 to 3,000 guerrillas that were thought to be holed up in the city.

Military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity cautioned that the death toll was only a rough estimate and would change as bodies delivered to hospitals and morgues began to be tallied.

The toll takes into account fighters killed in ground fighting, as well as by hundreds of air and artillery strikes that have collapsed buildings and pounded insurgent positions. The military had no information on the numbers of civilians killed or wounded.

U.S. warplanes and artillery, meanwhile, bombarded southern parts of Fallujah where troops were trying to squeeze Sunni fighters in a smaller and smaller cordon Thursday, the fourth day of an offensive that has sent wounded streaming into the military's main hospital in Europe.

Two planes, each carrying around 90 bloodied and broken troops, were expected Thursday at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. They join 125 soldiers already at the hospital for treatment of wounds, most of them suffered in the assault.

At least 13 U.S. soldiers and Marines have been killed so far in the Fallujah operation, according to military reports pieced together since Monday. The military has been slow in releasing official, comprehensive reports, citing security.

The large number of wounded sent to Germany suggests that fighting may be more intense — at least in some areas — than the military had initially indicated. Only seriously wounded troops are flown to Landstuhl.

Two U.S. Army Super Cobra attack helicopters were shot down in separate incidents near Fallujah, the military said Thursday. The crews were not injured and were rescued.

In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded on a central commercial street, killing at least 17 people and wounding at least eight, police said. It was the latest in a wave of attacks that insurgents have unleashed this week, trying to divert U.S. and Iraqi forces and show they can still wage their campaign of violence despite the Fallujah assault.

The car bomb — the second one in as many days to cause heavy casualties in the capital — narrowly missed a U.S. patrol on Saadoun Street but ripped through the crowded thoroughfare, near major hotels housing foreigners. Huge plumes of black smoke rose in the air as a dozen cars mangled in the blast burned, and bystanders pulled bodies and bloodied victims from the rubble.

In Fallujah, U.S. troops were steadily advancing through the city from the northern side, pushing militants slowly into the southern half. With U.S. units positioned to the south and east, and the Euphrates River on the west, insurgents are being squeezed into a corner, the military said.

Loud explosions rocked the city throughout the morning as gunfire reverberated across town and helicopters hovered overhead. Marines were seen perched on rooftops. Many buildings were heavily damaged, with few signs of civilians.

Asked on ABC television if most insurgent fled the city before fighting began — as some officers on the ground have said — Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers said, "hundreds and hundreds of insurgents, who have either been killed or captured in this activity so far."

In the past 24 hours of fighting, three American troops were killed while another 17 were wounded in Fallujah, commanders said. The military said Tuesday that the total American toll in the operation stood at 10. The number of enemy fighters killed was not available, with U.S. officials saying rebel casualties from airstrikes was difficult to confirm.

American troops, on the verge of gaining control of the city, have been fighting pockets of resistance in this former militant stronghold as an Iraqi commander reported the discovery of "hostage slaughterhouses" in which foreign captives had been killed.

U.S. troops discovered an Iraqi man chained to a wall in a building in northeastern Fallujah, the military said Thursday. The man, who was shackled at the ankles and wrists, bruised and starving, told Marines he was a taxi driver abducted 10 days ago and that his captors had beat him with cables.

In what could be a sign of progress, the Marines began turning over the northern neighborhood of Jolan to Iraqi forces, signaling that they consider the area relatively secure. Jolan, a dense, historic district of tight alleyways, was considered one of the strongest positions held by militants inside Fallujah and parts of it saw heavy fighting.

In one of the most dramatic clashes Wednesday, snipers fired on U.S. and Iraqi troops from the minarets of the Khulafah al-Rashid mosque, the military said. U.S. Marines called in an airstrike, and an F-18 dropped a 500-pound bomb on the mosque, destroying both minarets.

Pool footage showed U.S. forces battling insurgents in a neighborhood surrounding the mosque. Troops were pinned down by gunfire on a rooftop, forced to hit the deck and lay on their stomachs.

"When they're using a mosque to do command and control for insurgents and kill my fellow Marines and soldiers and airmen that are out here — no holds barred, the gloves are off," said Marine Staff Sgt. Sam Mortimer.

U.S. troops were also skirmishing with insurgents late Wednesday in Fallujah's Wihdah and Muhandiseen neighborhoods, according to Iraqi journalist Abdul Qader Saadi, who said he saw some damaged and burnt armored vehicles and tanks.

Saadi and other witnesses reported bodies on the streets, with dogs hovering around them. Residents said they were running out of food in a city that had its electricity cut two days ago.

Most of Fallujah's 200,000 to 300,000 residents are believed to have fled the city before the U.S. assault. Civilian casualties in the attack are not known.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, told President Bush on Wednesday that his troops were "making very good progress" securing Iraq. Bush said his commanders had not asked for more troops. The U.S. military has sent up to 15,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops into the battle, backed by tanks, artillery and attack aircraft.

Some officers believe many insurgents likely abandoned the city before the offensive was launched and moved elsewhere to continue their campaign of violence. The most wanted guerrilla, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is thought to have fled.

During the assault on the Fallujah — once the insurgents' strongest bastion, 40 miles west of Baghdad — rebels have continued heavy attacks elsewhere.

At least 28 people were killed in violence across the country outside Fallujah Wednesday — including 10 killed in a Baghdad car bomb.

Another car bomb exploded in northern Iraq near a convoy carrying the governor of Kirkuk province, killing one bystander and injuring 14 others. Police said Governor Abdul-Rahman Mustafa, a Kurd, was unharmed.

Militants on Tuesday night kidnapped three relatives of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, and the next day a group claiming to hold them threatened to behead them in 48 hours unless the Fallujah siege is halted and all prisoners are released. Militants also claimed to have abducted 20 Iraqi National Guard troops in Fallujah.

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