Fallujah forces readying for a decisive battle

NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq -- Inside the city that is the hub of Iraq's insurgency, guerrillas are digging tunnels, laying minefields, and handing out cash to needy residents to win their support in an expected imminent showdown with US forces, residents and witnesses say.

On the outskirts of Fallujah, US troops are also preparing for battle, moving closer to the city than they have in months to test insurgents' reactions. Marine and Army units are forming a force expected to be far larger than the 3,000 Marines who took part in April's abortive assault on the insurgent stronghold, which was called off amid political concerns and left guerrillas in control of the streets.

A day before US presidential elections in which the fight to bring Iraq under control has become a central issue, there were constant reminders here of pending battle, which both sides believe could be bloodier, longer, and more decisive than in April. Red illumination rounds lit up the night sky amid the clatter of helicopters and the boom of artillery fire.

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has vowed to unleash an assault by US and Iraqi forces if the city does not hand over the insurgents and allow Iraqi government security forces, supported by US troops, back into the city. The assault could clear out the country's main insurgent base, a major step toward making it possible to hold elections scheduled for January, or it could plunge Iraq into a new chapter of violence if it sparks uprisings across the country, as did the April assault.

Allawi has given the insurgents no deadline, but the ongoing preparations make clear that the fight could be intense and politically explosive.

After six months in control of Fallujah, insurgents operate so openly that they wear laminated badges displaying the names of the militant groups they belong to, such as Tawhid and Jihad, the First Army of Mohammed, and the 1920s Brigades. Some Iraqi journalists who work in the city flash press cards issued by the guerrillas that are emblazoned with verses from the Koran.

Some residents are defiant in their support for the insurgents, despite US and Iraqi officials' declarations that the fighters are holding the city hostage.

"They are the sons of the city," Hashim Ahmed, 35, who evacuated his family after their house was bombed in one of this summer's many skirmishes, said in a recent interview in Baghdad.

"If the choice is between the mujahideen and the occupation, we prefer the mujahideen," he said, using the Arabic word for holy warriors.

Armored vehicles have swooped into positions around the city several times in recent days to draw out the guerrillas and see how they react, according to Marine officials and Fallujah residents.

"If the takedown is the right hook, then this is the jab punch, to get them off balance," said First Lieutenant Nathan Braden, spokesman for the First Marine Division, whose troops would play a lead role in an invasion.

Each side sees the battle as the chance to finish the contest that was cut short in April by an ill-fated negotiated settlement: US forces are determined to take back the city, while the insurgents have vowed to show that rooting them out will cost too much in blood and political capital for Allawi's government and its US backers.

Most of Fallujah's 250,000 residents have fled, including many to camps outside the city, according to residents and US officials. Inside the city, rebels and civilians alike are stockpiling gasoline, water, and other necessities.

In the city's northern section, insurgents are rigging narrow alleys with mines and remote-controlled bombs, guerrilla leaders said at a recent meeting of the Mujahideen Shura council.

They claim to have 15,000 fighters in the city, armed with ground-to-ground Katyusha and surface-to-air Strela rockets as well as the standard tools of the insurgency: machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and homemade bombs. US commanders put the number of fighters in Fallujah at 3,000 to 4,000. Months ago they cited that number as the total number of insurgents in Iraq; they now put that total at 8,000 to 12,000.

Insurgent groups are staking a claim on the loyalties of residents. Ahmed, a professor of mass communications at the Islamic University in Baghdad, said that on his most recent visit a few weeks ago he saw a list posted at a mosque naming 1,000 families whom the insurgents claimed to have given financial aid after they lost houses or family members in the fighting.

But at the recent meeting of the insurgent council, some Fallujah residents accused both the insurgents and the government of failing to work hard enough to resolve the situation without violence.

At a Jordanian-run hospital on the outskirts of town, many refugees from the city are being treated for diarrhea and other illnesses after drinking untreated water. The deteriorating conditions are putting some pressure on the guerrillas to make compromises to end the standoff, some residents and hospital workers said.

Still, clerics affiliated with the insurgent council issued religious decrees this week calling for civil disobedience and uprisings around the country.

"They should expect their casualties will be double ours," the council's leader, Abdullah Janabi, said of US forces.

Last night, a US Air Force plane dropped a bomb that destroyed a weapons cache on the southeast side of the city, the military said.

That area, where Ahmed lives, has been subject to frequent bombardments since the summer. Ahmed said his brother's house was destroyed and his own neighboring house damaged in one strike. They are located near a Tawhid and Jihad headquarters.

Still, he said, he supports the fighters, who he said were battling for the Sunni Muslim minority. "They feel that the occupation is going to exclude them from the political arena," he said.

Braden, of the First Marine Division, said US forces' most important task is to convince Fallujans that restoring government control will bring them reconstruction dollars and the rule of law.

"What we're mainly concerned about is the aftermath, to be prepared to show the people we're here to give the city back to them," he said.

An Iraqi correspondent for the Globe contributed to this report from Fallujah.