WAR OF THE RATS:

US tips toward restraint in Fallujah: Over the weekend, US forces around the insurgent city held off from assault in favor of more pinpointed security measures. (Scott Peterson, 4/26/04, The Christian Science Monitor)

The US Marine sniper hadn't slept all night, but it was hard to tell under the layers of camouflage face paint.

He was back at home base after a night battle that left some 30 insurgents dead. "Recon found [the insurgents], they were engaged, and then Specter gunships let loose," said the sniper. "They are no more."

The sniper is at the sharp end of an increasingly successful hunt for guerrillas that is giving US Marines pause as they weigh the possibility of an all-out assault on Fallujah.

Tuesday, US troops will begin joint patrols with Iraqi security forces inside Fallujah in an attempt to gradually restore control over the insurgent stronghold without a major attack. Fallujah presents US officials with a difficult nut to crack. They cannot cede control of the city to the 2,000 or so insurgents now there. But a full-scale assault - accompanied by likely civilian casualties - could turn large segments of the Iraqi population against the US, and derail plans to construct a democratic stronghold in the Middle East.

Tough threats from US commanders that insurgents in Fallujah had just "days not weeks" to hand in their weapons gave way over the weekend to a less strident tone.

"If we don't do this absolutely correctly, we will incur damage to the end state we seek," warns Col. John Coleman, chief of staff of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force that controls western Iraq.

Instead of bringing enough stability to hand over control to a future Iraqi government, he says the stand-off over Fallujah is a very complex "small war" and "we're deep in it."

Better to kill them than just collect their weapons.

MORE:
Falluja truce has 'weakened resistance' (aljazeera.net, 04/25/2004)

The ceasefire brokered by Iraqi mediators in the Iraqi city of Falluja appears to have weakened the fighters battling US marines while also creating divisions within the Sunni Muslim community.

The fighters have been trapped by the US siege in the flashpoint city west of Baghdad for the past three weeks, after having initially succeeded in winning national support for their cause.

"The city has been completely surrounded for the past 10 days and the fighters are trapped inside and cannot leave," said one local tribal chief, Mansur al-Hadithi, who is sympathetic to the resistance.

"Most of these fighters are from Falluja and determined to defend their city in case of an attack," he said.

The Islamic Party and the Association of Muslim Scholars, composed of top Sunni clerics, which helped broker the truce, have now come under fire from within the Sunni minority over their mediation.

A communique signed by the "Iraqi resistance in Falluja" said the truce was "an inspiration from Satan because it shifted the balance power in favour of the occupation forces."

"Our mujahideen had the situation under control, and the truce weakened them," said the statement. A nationalist leader accused the Islamic Party of campaigning for a truce from the first week of fighting "to extricate the Americans from the Falluja quagmire."

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 25, 2004 7:24 PM