Keiler asks, "Was Fallujah a battle we lost in April 2004, with ruinous results? Or was it a battle we won in November?" He answers his own questions by saying, "The answer is yes. In his poignant article, "Who Won the Battle of Fallujah?" Jonathan F. The cost in lives also has left many questions as to how one should view these battles. The determined resistance and the savagery that would characterize the upcoming battles for this small city on the periphery of the Iraqi state would surprise the Americans and bring into question the level of success they had in finally taking Al-Fallujah. This in an area commonly called the Sunni Triangle and populated by Sunnis and Ba'athists who lost nearly everything when Saddam Hussein's regime fell. Indeed, in the three battles for control of the city between 20, Coalition forces lost roughly 150 killed and had 1,500 wounded. Perhaps it is not surprising that this city and region turned into the heart of pro-Hussein resistance during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and was witness to the bloodiest battles of the entire Second Persian Gulf War. Soon after the incursion began, it made worldwide headlines when a Royal Air Force (RAF) jet aiming at a key bridge, unintentionally dropped two laser guided bombs (LGBs) on a crowded market in the heart of the city killing dozens of civilians.įrom that time until the last American troops withdrew from Iraq in December 2011, Al-Fallujah became the main center of anti-Coalition violence. Favored by the Iraqi strongman, Saddam Hussein, it was a Ba'athist stronghold populated by loyal Sunni supporters of the regime in the Iraqi capital. The First Battle for Al-Fallujah: Backgroundīefore the United States and her allies invaded Iraq in the spring of 2003, Al-Fallujah was known only as a small city, forty-two miles west of Baghdad.
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