The London Telegraph reports on the US Army's Task Force 2-2 clearing buildings door to door in Fallujah's industrial zone - where all the foreign fighters hang out:
The flimsy metal door was ripped off its hinges as a hefty boot from a Legion platoon soldier made decisive contact. Inside the small room lay an AK-47 rifle, alarm clock parts and a handwritten notebook in Farsi. Moments earlier, the gunman, thought to be ian, had fled as Legion, Hunter and Outlaw platoons of the US army's Task Force 2-2 undertook one of the more dangerous tasks of the battle for Fallujah.
[. . .]
Moving deliberately through the area, the Phantoms came under sniper, mortar and small arms fire and had to negotiate mines and other explosives.Remarkably, they had completed a third of their task by nightfall yesterday without suffering a single casualty.
[. . .]
Having fought through the night, the Phantoms were battling against fatigue. Sleep was grabbed in morsels while sitting in the back of their Bradley fighting vehicle.
Fear was another enemy. The industrial zone, in the south-east corner of Fallujah, was thought to be the site of two car-bomb factories and had been the target of bombardment for months.
"This is all bad guys," said Capt Kirk Mayfield, commander of the Phantoms, pointing at an aerial photograph of the area. "Every sigint [electronic intercept], every humint [informant report] tells us this is where all the foreign fighters hang out."
Briefing his squad, Sgt Jamal Alexander could sense the apprehension. "You all know what you're getting into," he said. "Stay alert and stay alive. There aren't any friendlies in there. Anybody walks up, you kill them."
The sniper fire began almost immediately. So too did the mortars, sending earth showering the tin roofs of the warehouses and workshops as they landed up to 50 yards away.
"There's a man in black with a weapon on that roof," shouted Sgt Ndifreke Aanam-ndu, a Nigerian who hopes to gain American citizenship by serving in the army.
He fired three shots with his M-16 as one of the Bradleys providing support blew holes in the building.
The insurgents, however, melted away. There were no bloodstains found at another firing point identified in an upstairs room, where a sniper had left 7.62mm rounds and an empty can of Red Bull energy drink.
There was an eerie silence in the industrial area, punctuated by loud explosions and the crack of gunfire. There were no signs of life and most buildings appeared to have been locked up and abandoned weeks earlier.
When a boot didn't work, Sgt Alexander pulled out a shotgun to blast the locks. In every room the soldiers entered there was the possibility of death from a cornered fighter or a building rigged with explosives.
Clambering across a pile of rubble as they came under sniper fire, Legion platoon came across a copper wire leading from a building to a plastic tube that looked likely to be filled with explosives.
In one house, the soldiers were startled by barking as they burst in. "If that bitch goes for you, shoot it," ordered one nervous NCO.
This prompted a mini-revolt from the others. "No, don't," shouted another, as three labrador puppies ran across the room while their mother cowered. The soldier stroked the dogs and apologised because he had no food.
I'm so thankful we have troops like these.
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