US bombs gut insurgent bunker complex
Large stockpile of weapons said destroyed
FALLUJAH, Iraq -- US forces dropped a pair of 2,000-pound bombs early yesterday morning on a bunker complex believed to be an insurgent training facility on the southern edge of this city, where the most dedicated and best trained rebel fighters are making a last stand.
The bombs shook the ground of the former insurgent stronghold and set off secondary explosions that went on for 45 minutes but could not be seen above ground, persuading officers of the Army's First Infantry Division that there were large stockpiles of weapons underground.
After nearly a week of fighting, American forces said they and their Iraqi counterparts had wrested most of the devastated city from insurgents, but continued to comb through buildings in search of an elusive enemy and to unleash heavy artillery that added to the destruction that Iraq's US-backed government will have to repair.
''It's like a drop of mercury in a maze," US Marines Major General Richard Natonski, the architect of the Fallujah operation, said yesterday of the difficulty capturing small groups of insurgents roaming the city.
''You push it in one direction and it breaks into pieces and flows all around," Natonski said on a visit to a forward command post.
On the streets of Fallujah, Marines recovered the disemboweled body of an unidentified Western woman wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket.
It is not known if the body was of Margaret Hassan, the 59-year-old director of CARE international who was one of two Western women abducted last month. Polish-born Teresa Borcz Khalifa, 54, another longtime resident of Iraq, has also been missing since last month.
Marines reopened the infamous bridge over the Euphrates River where Iraqis strung up the charred bodies of two American contractors in March in a brutal slaying that sparked a Marine assault on the city that was ultimately called off.
As fighting wound down in Fallujah, chaos erupted elsewhere in the country, as insurgents stormed two police stations yesterday in the strife-ridden city of Mosul, killing at least six Iraqis.
Saboteurs set fire to four oil wells in Iraq's northern fields, setting off successive explosions in Khabbaza, 12 miles northwest of Kirkuk, oil officials said.
Heavy explosions rattled central Baghdad near the Palestine and Sheraton hotels after dark fell last night, followed by bursts of sporadic gunfire. The US military said initial reports indicated rockets or mortars had struck the area, killing two Iraqis and wounding another.
Thirty-eight US soldiers have been killed in the attack on Fallujah, and 275 have been wounded. The US military estimates that at least 1,200 insurgents have been killed in a week of fighting, but the toll the assault has taken on the civilian population is still unknown.
ABC pool video footage showed Marines blowing the gates off houses with explosives. A bit of bright color stood out on the gray, rubble-strewn streets -- a pink dress on the body of a small child crumpled next to the curb.
Yesterday, Natonski said the operation was a success -- despite the eruption of violence in Mosul and other parts of the Sunni triangle -- because now it would not be easy for insurgents to establish a new base like the one they had in Fallujah.
''When they're moving they're vulnerable," he said. ''They no longer have the sanctuary they used to have in Fallujah, where they could rest, refit, resupply, and go back out."
The insurgency had also lost an important symbol, he said.
''This was there in your face: 'We have Fallujah and you don't.' They can't say that anymore," Natonski said.
In an interview with Iraqi television, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi defended his decision to order the attack on Fallujah, saying he decided to strike after security forces arrested ''two very important" terrorist organizations. He did not elaborate.
Allawi said up to 400 insurgents have been captured, including fighters from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Morocco, but he gave no figures.
The First Infantry Division's Task Force 2-2 has captured five foreign fighters and killed five, officers said, adding that many foreign fighters appeared to be fleeing. A group of men in Afghan dress were seen running away, the officers said.
''They're leaving the native Fallujans to die in place," Natonski said.
The detainees included Palestinians, Jordanians, and Saudi Arabians.
The 2-2 task force commander, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Newell, said that US forces had also bombed the headquarters of Omar Hadid, one of the strongest resistance leaders in Fallujah.
Hadid is considered Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's top lieutenant in Fallujah, representing the most lethal core group of jihadi fighters in the city.
Newell said that 40 fighters were seen entering a building in a block believed to serve as Hadid's headquarters.
Troops called in airstrikes, Newell said, killing all but eight fighters who escaped.
Natonski said it was unclear if Hadid or any other key leaders such as Zarqawi had been killed or captured.
The task force intelligence officer briefed the First Infantry Division commander, Major General John Batiste, who also visited the command post, located in a dusty lot.
The intelligence officer described how at one site warplanes dropped a single bomb and two men emerged.
After a second bomb, a larger number of people fled, he said. After the third and largest bomb, several trucks drove out from the building.
Barnard reported from Fallujah, Stockman from Washington. Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. 