U.S. troops take control of Fallujah

Insurgents have been surrendering in groups.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
FALLUJAH, Iraq -- The weeklong assault to retake Fallujah appeared to be in its final stages Saturday, with the insurgency that once had a choke hold on the city reduced to pockets of resistance in southern neighborhoods, Iraqi and U.S. military leaders said Saturday.
However, Iraq's most-wanted insurgent, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had escaped as predicted and is at large, said Iraq's national security adviser, Qassim Daoud.
Daoud said 1,000 insurgents have been killed so far and 200 others captured. He did not say how those numbers were derived. Marine Lt. Col. James Rainey put the number captured at more than 300. Among them have been fighters from Syria, Egypt and Lebanon, Rainey said.
Some surrender
Marine commanders reported that groups of insurgents have begun surrendering. Some lay down their arms after Iraqi soldiers captured a mosque and broadcast through minaret loudspeakers that it was safe to surrender.
Daoud said that Fallujah has been "liberated" and only "mop-up" work remained to ferret out the last insurgents. Asked about Daoud's assessment, Rainey said, "In the area I'm responsible for, there's sporadic resistance remaining."
"There is still some fighting left to do. I don't know how much."
Before the offensive began, U.S. military leaders had said they expected as many as 3,000 Sunni Muslim radicals, Saddam Hussein loyalists and foreign fighters to be hunkered down in the dense, impoverished neighborhoods and winding alleyways and footpaths that make up most of Fallujah.
Al-Zarqawi fled
But once the offensive got under way, U.S. commanders said it became clear that many of the insurgents had fled, including al-Zarqawi, who is blamed for a wave of kidnappings, beheadings, car bombings and other attacks that have plagued postwar Iraq for months.
In places the fighting has been fierce; as of Saturday 24 American troops had been killed in action in Fallujah and 170 others injured. But the offensive's progress has been swift.
On the second day of the offensive U.S. and Iraqi troops had driven to the heart of the city, and within five days they had wrested control of 80 percent of it.
On Saturday, The Associated Press quoted U.S. military officials as saying they effectively occupied the entire city.
With Fallujah under control, U.S. and Iraqi security forces have had to turn their attention to several other cities where violence has raged in recent days. In the northern city of Mosul, where insurgents stormed nine police stations last week, a car bomb injured seven Iraqi National Guardsmen on Saturday, including two critically.
The U.S. military has diverted an infantry unit from Fallujah to the northern city of Mosul to help contain the violence there. Iraqi National Guard units, many of them Kurdish pesh merga fighters, have also been called in to quell the rebel attacks.
Calls to get rid of terrorists
"We have been receiving calls from the mosques all over Mosul to ask the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police to intervene to restore law and order and get rid of the terrorists," said Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
Residents in Mosul have reported looting. Insurgents have begun setting up checkpoints, and Iraqi police have expressed fear about showing up for work.
"People are frightened -- they have nothing to protect them," said Salah Ismael, a 34-year-old taxi driver. "There is no government, no authority, and no Iraqi security forces here at all."