From Islam Online :

Washington will win the military battle in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah but its strategic looses[sic] will certainly outweigh such a victory, said a French strategic expert.

Branding the US practices against the Fallujah residents as “state terrorism,” Pascal Boniface, Director of the Institute for International and Strategic Studies [sic] in Paris, expected the onslaught to further fan anti-US feelings in the entire Islamic world.

Addressing a seminar organized by the Arab World Institute on Wednesday, November 17, Boniface said the cold-blooded killing of an unarmed, wounded Iraqi by a US soldiers in a Fallujah mosques was not an isolated incident.

He said the murder as well as the prisoners abuses in the infamous Abu Ghreib and Guantanamo Bay detentions demonstrate an established policy and doctrine.
[…]
The French expert described the Fallujah offensive as a ” strategic loss” for the Bush administration.

The Americans would undoubtedly win the fighting but they would strategically lose the battle as they did with the Iraq invasion, Boniface said.
[…]
The French expert considered the Fallujah operation as a new proof of American troubles in the Iraqis quagmire.

He refuted American allegations that the offensive was to eliminate terrorists from the city.

Boniface expected the onslaught to fan the already spiraling anti-US sentiments across Arab and Muslim countries and create more generations of those described by Washington as terrorists, not only in Iraq but in other parts of the world.

He added that the operation also killed stone dead the legitimacy of the planned January elections and its outcome.

The interim government lost credibility among Iraqis and Arabs who see it as a puppet in the hands of the US occupation forces, said the French expert.
[…]
Boniface hailed Arab popular reaction to the Fallujah offensive.

He said that despite the absence of democracy and political pressure groups, the Arab public opinion is turning into a mighty force interacting with developments in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.

The French expert noted that the emerging force of the public opinion, motivated by the Arab satellite channels, is now seen by the west and the Americans as the official spokesman of the Arab world.

The well-connected Paris-based IRIS (Institute for International and Strategic Relations) is not to be confused with the highly regarded IISS, (International Institute for Strategic Studies).

Elaborating on a previous post, from Middle East Online :

The US-led assault on Fallujah has “broken the back of the insurgency” in Iraq by taking away its safe haven, scattering operatives and disrupting their command networks, the top US marine commander in Iraq said.

Lieutenant General John Sattler said the city was secure 11 days after the start of Operation Dawn, but not safe. Heavy fighting was still erupting in some quarters of the city as marines and Iraqi troops clear buildings of holdouts.

“Based on some of the records and ledgers we’ve been able to uncover, we feel right now that we have … broken the back of the insurgency and we’ve taken away the safe haven,” Sattler said.

The offensive would force the insurgents to set up operations in less familiar areas with untested allies, he added.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The marine and soldier died during continuing mop-up operations in the former insurgent bastion, raising the coalition toll in the fighting to retake the city to 51 US dead and eight Iraqis, the top US Marine commander there said.

US-led troops continued to engage in sporadic battles against rebels in Fallujah after launching a major assault to wrest the Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad from insurgents 10 days ago.
[…]
Iraqi volunteers and US troops were able to clear 24 corpses from the battered city and evacuate five civilians.

The Iraqi Red Crescent said 150 families remained stranded.

From the New York Times :

The Department of Defense has identified 1,212 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans this week:

HEFLIN, Christopher T., 26, Sgt., Marines; Paducah, Ky.; First Marine Division.

QUALLS, Louis W., 20, Lance Cpl., Temple, Tex.; Fourth Marine Division.

WULLENWABER, Luke C., 24, First Lt., Army; Lewiston, Idaho; Second Infantry Division.

From The Age :

Senior US marine intelligence officers in Iraq are warning that insurgents will rebound from their defeat if planned cuts to US troop levels in Fallujah go ahead.

The rebels could thwart retraining of Iraqi security forces, intimidate local residents and derail January elections, the officers say.

They fear that despite the insurgents’ heavy casualties in the week-long Fallujah battle, their numbers will continue to grow, there will be further guerilla attacks and fighters will foment unrest among Fallujah’s returning residents, using the idea that expectations for better conditions have not been met.

The warning is contained in a classified report prepared by intelligence officers in the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force last weekend as the Fallujah offensive was winding down. The leaked assessment was distributed to senior officers in Iraq, where one called it “brutally honest”.
[…]
The intelligence assessment offers a stark counterpoint to more positive assessments by military chiefs in the wake of the Fallujah operation, which they say completed its goals well ahead of schedule and with fewer Iraqi civilian and US casualties than expected.

Senior military officers in Iraq and Washington who have read the report cautioned that the assessment was a subjective judgement by some marine intelligence officers near the front lines and did not reflect the views of all intelligence officials and senior commanders in Iraq.

“The assessment of the enemy is a worst-case assessment,” the senior military intelligence officer in Iraq, Brigadier-General John DeFreitas, said.

“We have no intention of creating a vacuum and walking away from Fallujah.”

A senior officer in Washington said the view from the tactical intelligence level had generally been more pessimistic than that from officers at the strategic level.

From the BBC :

Three Frenchmen have died fighting with insurgents against US-led troops in Iraq, reports say.

The men, all of Arab origin, were killed in the country over recent months as the insurgency has flared.

Two of the men were aged 19 and the third was 24 years old, a French official said.

Authorities estimate that around a dozen Frenchmen of North African or Arab background have travelled to Iraq to join the insurgency.

The men were identified as

• 24-year-old Tarek W, from Paris, killed on 17 September

• 19-year-old Redouane el-Hakim, killed on 17 July

• Abdel Halim Badjoudj, 19, killed on 20 October.

Note that a handful of Australians, Britons and Americans were caught fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan.

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation):

Iraqi police have arrested a senior aide to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr in the southern city of Najaf.

”Sheikh Hashem Abu Raghif was arrested at his home Wednesday night after detainees were forced to confess that he had ordered torture against prisoners detained by the Sadr movement,” Sheikh Ali Smeism said.

Before it was ousted from Najaf after an August offensive led by the US army, the Sadr movement had established its own tribunals and jails in the holy city.

Meanwhile Iraqi police and national guards have detained more than 100 suspected militants in raids around Haifa Street, a rebellious Sunni Muslim stronghold in Baghdad.

In all 104 people were arrested, including nine who were suspected of having escaped from the US-led offensive against the rebel city of Fallujah over the past 10 days.

American forces battled through boobytrapped lanes and alleys Wednesday in a stunningly swift advance, taking control of 70 percent of Fallujah and bottling up enemy fighters along a strip of territory flanking the main east-west highway that bisects the rebel bastion.

The military said at least 71 militants had been killed as of the beginning of the third day of intense urban combat, with the casualty figure expected to rise sharply once U.S. forces account for insurgents killed in airstrikes.

Read more…

Good analysis here. Scroll down to previous entries as well.

From the AFP via The Australian :

IRAQ’S interim government set a night curfew on Baghdad and its surrounding areas today following the bombings of churches and a city hospital that killed at least 16 people.

The measure was introduced after US-led troops fought their way into reached central Fallujah, the main stronghold of Sunni resistance west of the capital, on the orders of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

The curfew was in force from 10.30pm until 4am and will remain in place until further notice, Allawi’s office said.

From The Australian :

A posting on an Islamist website has warned Iraqis to stay at home today in Baghdad and other cities or they would be “putting their lives in danger”.

The statement, in the name of eight known militant groups, said the unified “Islamic resistance” would step up operations against the “American enemy” in retaliation for the US-led attack on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

The statement urged Iraqis to stay at home today “to avoid putting their lives in danger”.

In Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, insurgents distributed leaflets warning shopkeepers to close their stores indefinitely starting today to protest about the attack on Fallujah.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

US tanks pushing into central Fallujah have met fierce resistance from well-organised insurgents who show no signs of giving up, US Marines said today.
[…]
US infantry and tanks have punched deep into the city, and their Iraqi allies have made gains, but there are no signs Fallujah will come under their full control soon.

After a relative overnight lull, fierce fighting erupted again today.

A tank platoon that moved along Fallujah’s main street saw fighters who had just come under mortar fire climb onto rooftops and fire rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and machineguns.

“There are lots of them. We took heavy fire,” Gunnery Sergeant Ishmail Castillo told Reuters.

“They opened up on my tank. They don’t look like they are going to cave in.”

Sergeant Castillo said his tank had killed six guerrillas and two Marines were wounded in fighting.

“One of the Marines was hit in the head by RPG shrapnel,” he said.

Artillery barrages and machinegun fire echoed across the city as plumes of black smoke rose.

Tank platoon commander Lieutenant Joe Cash said the guerrillas were unleashing coordinated attacks.

“They hit us from one area and then another right afterwards. There is in-depth organisation. There were small-arms attacks all night,” he said.

Running along Fallujah’s streets in groups of four or five, the guerrillas appeared in black clothes and headscarves or dressed in uniforms worn by Iraqi government forces, said Lieutenant Cash.

“Some take off their fighting clothes, walk to a weapons cache and next thing you know they are shooting at you,” he said.

“You see a guy walking in the street with normal clothes and he gives you a hard look and you just know he is one of them.”

Lieutenant Cash said Marines found many weapons caches around Fallujah, including in mosques.

“We’ve reached the heart of Jolan,” Major Clark Watson said of a northwestern district of the Iraqi city where insurgents have long had a strong presence.

“We have pushed through four square kilometres, but it’s too early to say we are controlling it,” he told Reuters.

“That will take time because there will always be pockets of resistance.”

Maj Watson, of the 1st Battalion of Marine infantry, said guerrillas were fighting back, but not as hard as expected.

“It wasn’t as much as we thought it would be, but they have put up resistance,” he said.

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Six Iraqi national guards were killed when two roadside bombs exploded minutes apart in northern Iraq, an Iraqi official said.

”A roadside bomb exploded at 7:45 am in the path of a national guard patrol in Tuz, destroying a vehicle and killing four of its occupants,” said national guard general, Anuar Mohammad, noting that a commander was among the victims.

Twenty minutes later, a second bomb exploded near a patrol that had been dispatched to the scene of the first blast, killing two, Mr Mohammad said.

One US soldier was killed and another injured when their armoured patrol struck a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, the US military said.

“A 1st Infantry Division soldier was killed and one injured after their combat patrol was struck by an improvised explosive device near Balad at about 4:20 am,” it said in a statement.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

An explosion outside a Catholic church in south-western Baghdad has wounded at least 35 people, police and hospital sources said.

The blast destroyed the outer wall of St Bahnam’s Church and set the house next door ablaze, witnesses said.

A doctor at Yarmouk Hospital said 35 people had been brought in from the blast in the capital’s Dora district.

Police said a car bomb had detonated outside the church but witnesses said it appeared explosives were planted nearby.

Five churches were hit in a string of bomb attacks in October that seemed designed to intimidate the country’s small but deep-rooted Christian community, already shaken by a series of church bombings that killed 11 people in August.

Iraq’s 650,000 Christians, mostly Chaldeans, Assyrians and Catholics, comprise about 3 per cent of the population.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The US military says a car bomb has exploded near a checkpoint on the road to Baghdad international airport.

They say there are reports of Iraqi casualties.

Earlier, gunmen killed a senior Iraqi Oil Ministry official as he left his home in the south of Baghdad.

From the AFP via ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Four Jordanian truck drivers were kidnapped in Iraq, government spokeswoman Asma Khodr said late Tuesday, according to state-run Petra news agency.

Khodr did not say when they were abducted but said Jordan “will seize the opportunity of the presence in Jordan (Wednesday) of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to make more efforts to win the release of the hostages”, Petra reported.

The Government spokeswoman also said that two other Jordanians had come under fire in the volatile Ramadi region west of Baghdad.

“One of them was injured and the other was (briefly) detained,” she said, citing their relatives.