Insurgent hotbed tests urban combat training

In some ways, the fight for Fallujah represents the urbanization of conflict in the world.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
FORT POLK, La. -- In recent years the U.S. military has devoted much money and effort to preparing for 21st-century urban warfare -- and this preparation may be facing its fiercest test yet in the Euphrates city of Fallujah, as the initial offensive began Monday.
Fallujah's narrow streets, mosques and ancient neighborhoods make the city an archetype of an insurgents' redoubt. Defenders will try to use their knowledge of the terrain to gain advantage over the better armed and trained Americans. U.S. forces will likely tighten a noose around contested areas, while attacking from unexpected directions in an attempt to confuse the enemy.
In the long run, the central question may be whether physical control of Fallujah equates to its eventual pacification. In the short run, there's little doubt that U.S. forces will eventually gain control of the city, say military officials and outside experts. New training, tactics and equipment -- plus the weight of American firepower -- will see to that.
Weakening insurgency
U.S. commanders hope Fallujah will prove to be an opportunity to weaken the insurgency, but they don't count on it. Fallujah "has the potential of being a very intense fight, even for a matter of weeks, but I don't think it's a center of gravity," said Maj. Gen. William Webster, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, whose forces are undergoing a final urban-training exercise at Fort Polk, in preparation for deployment to Iraq. It would be a center of gravity only if the enemy concentrates there, he said.
In many respects, the fight for Fallujah -- dubbed Operation Phantom Fury -- epitomizes the urbanization of conflict in Iraq and around the world, as insurgents and terrorist groups increasingly operate concealed in sprawling population centers in a bid to survive against militarily superior government forces.
Population multiplies
As the world's urban population has multiplied from roughly half a billion in 1950 to more than 3 billion today, while the size of the U.S. military has fallen sharply, cities such as Fallujah are posing daunting demands on the resources of U.S. commanders, who must carefully pick and choose where to allocate forces to "make manageable the chaos," Russell Glenn, an expert in urban warfare, wrote in a 2004 RAND briefing. He likens the challenge of urban combat to the parable of blind men "visualizing the elephant."
"Moving into urban terrain is the one way our adversaries can level the playing field," said retired Col. Randy Gangle, director of the Marines Corps Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities at Quantico, Va. "It's the most complex battle space you can find yourself in, the way buildings conceal and channelize your movement and give your enemy cover, and the civilians that compact the problem."
The clutter of buildings creates unlimited fighting positions for enemy forces, while making it harder for U.S. forces to see and communicate.
The close combat requires quick movement and decisions, even while it raises the risk of fratricide and killing innocent civilians. Historically, civilians have suffered several times the casualties of U.S. forces in urban battles such as the cases of Hue in Vietnam in 1968, Panama in 1989 and Mogadishu in 1993.
The challenge of defeating insurgents while avoiding civilian deaths requires a far greater emphasis by U.S. forces on intelligence gathering, sleuthing out patterns of enemy behavior, and winning over local populations, said Brig. Gen. Mike Barbero, commander of the premier U.S. Army urban-training facility, the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk.
"Intelligence is the coin of the realm on this battlefield," said Barbero, who served as assistant division commander of the 4th Infantry Division in Iraq until this summer. Soldiers pay a price for not acting quickly on intelligence -- ideally within two hours, he said. "You have to be very agile ... because [if you are not], the meeting will be over, the guy paying for improvised explosive devices will be gone, or the guy on the cell phone will move to the next town."
Even if American troops rout the insurgents, rebels who have left can come back to sow the seeds of a fresh rebellion.
Training altered
Over the past two years, the Army has dramatically altered urban training at JRTC to prepare soldiers for the complexities of the counterinsurgency in Iraq.
The number of mock villages in the base's expanse of woods and swamps has been increased from four to 18, while 200 Arabic-speaking role players impersonating Iraqi tribesmen, police and civilians have replaced many of the Louisiana locals.
"Before, the role players were all local guys with Southern accents who would say 'You ran over my goat'; now you go into a Kurdish village, and the mayor is from northern Iraq," said Barbero.
At the same time, U.S. troops are undergoing urban-warfare training for longer periods in greater numbers, with support units as well as infantry. This year, for example, 16 brigades will rotate through JRTC for monthlong mission rehearsals, compared with 10 brigades last year, Barbero said.