For the first time in the Iraq war, according to military officials, US aircraft last week directly bombed a mosque. The airstrike northwest of Ramadi ended an intense firefight in which insurgents, holed up inside the shrine with heavy weapons, held off the US Marines for three hours. Precision-guided munitions set the Sharqi mosque ablaze, but left it standing.

"The Marines couldn't even get close to the building to do anything because of the firepower that was coming out of there," making the mosque a legitimate target, says a senior military official in Baghdad. "The only way to stop this was with a strike."

The incident illustrates how US and Iraqi forces over the past three months have adopted increasingly tough tactics against a dug-in insurgency: raiding mosques, dropping bombs and firing rockets in cities, and conducting large-scale infantry sweeps into urban "no-go zones."

The aggressive military campaign marks a strategic shift based in part on missteps last spring, when political concerns led US troops to pull back from assaults on Fallujah, Najaf, and other cities, and cede ground to insurgents. It is part of a plan to establish security for Iraqi elections scheduled for January.

Buoyed by what American commanders consider largely successful operations to retake hostile territory in Najaf, Tal Afar, and Samarra, US forces are preparing for battle in the most entrenched insurgent cities, including Ramadi, capital of the restive Anbar Province, and the rebel and terrorist stronghold of Fallujah.

"As you look back to April, we began offensive military operations [in Fallujah], then stopped," says Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, deputy director of operations for the US-led coalition. "A security force was established, but proved ineffective ... allowing it to become a safe haven. We learned from this and applied the lesson in Najaf, Samarra, Tal Afar, and will continue to apply it elsewhere.

"If you don't secure all areas, insurgents can flee to conduct operations elsewhere," says General Lessel. "That is why Fallujah has been such a thorn - because it has been used as a safe haven for planning and launching attacks. It has to be denied as a safe haven."

Still, with the hardest battles ahead, it's too early to tell whether the US has a winning strategy. In the short term, heavy US offensives could alienate the Iraqi population with higher civilian casualties and destruction of mosques, schools, and other public places where insurgents take refuge. In the long run, keeping cities pacified will depend on the staying power of fledgling Iraqi security forces and the progress of economic rebuilding, which remain tenuous.

"Both extremes still exist" in the effectiveness of Iraqi forces, says Lessel. "In those units where you have good leadership, there is good performance and high retention; in units with poor leadership, the entire organization can collapse."

Indeed, the pre-election offensive may require more US troops. American commanders agree that more forces are needed to secure the country, but stress that they prefer those troops be Iraqi. Still, senior Pentagon and military officials leave open the possibility of ramping up US forces in Iraq prior to January, most likely by lengthening tours for units already in the country, as fresh forces rotate in.

So far, major military operations have had little impact on curbing the daily carnage in Iraq's Sunni regions. Much of the Shiite south and northern Kurdish areas are relatively stable, with less than two attacks a day in 10 of Iraq's 18 provinces since power was transferred to an interim Iraqi government in June, according to military figures. But violence in Baghdad and cities to the west and north kept the average daily number of attacks at 70 in September - lower than August but higher than July. Moreover, attacks grew increasingly lethal, with more roadside explosions and suicide car bombings.

Nevertheless, US officers involved in recent operations in Najaf in August, Tal Afar in September, and Samarra and Baqubah this month, say they are optimistic so far. In each city except Baqubah, efforts to dislodge insurgents began with a carrot-and-stick approach, in which large-scale US and Iraqi military incursions came only after negotiations failed. While US troops took the lead, Iraqi forces proved far more effective than last spring, the officers say. Iraqi units have repeatedly cleared mosques of fighters and weapons, enabling US forces to avoid encroaching on holy sites.

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