In pockets of Fallujah, US troops still face harsh battles

The final blow came with heavy fire from a Spectre AC-130 gunship, which destroyed four houses used by the insurgents with 40 Howitzer shells.

The toll from a brutal night: One dead marine and nine wounded, including this correspondent, who was struck in the arm by a small piece of shrapnel.

The firefight brings the casualty rate in the Light Armored Reconnaissance (LAR) company to 1 man in 5; far less than the 60 percent reached during the battle for Vietnam's Hue City in 1968, the last urban assault before Fallujah waged by US Marines - but far higher than most modern combat operations.

The morning after the battle, as marines returned to the site to further clear the houses, two very young boys emerged from a house across the street, waving in a friendly way at the marines. They were followed by a woman in a black shroud and an older man. A cardboard sign on the wall, invisible during the firefight the night before, read: "There is family."

After granting civilians four hours each day to visit local food-distribution centers, commanders Wednesday extended the curfew to 24 hours a day. A jobs program was put on hold; it is not clear when civilians will be allowed to return.

And insurgents are still being found. On Tuesday, an LAR patrol uncovered five foreign men, suspected of being insurgents, hiding in a house. They had wounds, $1,100 in crisp hundred-dollar bills, and false identification papers.

"It's a man-on-man fight, a classic infantry battle," says marine Col. Craig Tucker, commander of the Regimental Combat Team-7, one of two regiments fighting in Fallujah.

"If you've got a guy sitting in a house with two grenades, who knows he is going to die, we're going to root these guys out, house by house," says Colonel Tucker. "[But] you can't go into every house and knock it down, It's the difference between an organization that follows the rules of war, and one that does not. The challenge for us, is not becoming them."

Such guerrilla tactics, which in the past week have included using a white surrender flag as a cover for attack, or playing dead on the street before jumping up to fire - have kept these marines on edge.

But even as US units apply overwhelming force, they are at risk from the asymmetrical threat posed by rebels - and the presence of civilians.

"I'm telling you marines, you have the authority to use lethal force," Captain Gil Juarez, the LAR commander, told his platoon chiefs when giving the order for Monday's operation. "But be advised: If you make a mistake and frag innocent civilians, there is going to be a [military lawyer] on the scene, and an investigation."

"We'll win the battle, no problem," Captain Juarez continued. "But this is still a war about human relations. This is political war. Everything we do must help toward winning that war."

A clear example of the tricky balance is Monday's battle, which started out as a typical clearing operation, in which LAR vehicles and on-foot scout teams pushed east to west between two clocks, clearing house after house.

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