In Fallujah's wake, marines go west

Major combat is still a possibility, with marines moving systematically through the cities and planning raids. Unmanned drones, their engines buzzing like lawn mowers, regularly scan the city's warren of alleys.

One of the first things the marines did was to round up and detain police officers. Hit's police force, as in most of the province's towns, appears to be completely compromised by the insurgents.

The last time Bravo company was here, in October, the "muj" had taken over the town council and the local police station without resistance. They killed locals whom they accused of supporting the new government and the US.

After the marines fought for two days around a key bridge and nearby palm groves, the town was secured. Some fighters were found in stolen police uniforms. The marines stayed four days more and then headed for Fallujah.

They felt they'd accomplished something with the "six days of Hit," as they call it. But when they left, despite repeated assurances from local sheikhs that there would be no more problems, the insurgents reasserted themselves.

"The concentration of forces for Fallujah manifested itself by allowing the enemy a little more wiggle room out here," says Colonel Dinauer. "Now we are going to ride that fine line ... where we don't spoil the goodwill that's here among many of the people, while still having enough force so if the enemy decides to fight we can kill them."

In Hit, marines are planning to fight all three blocks of what military doctrine calls the three-block war. The third block is the straight-out fighting of Fallujah. The second is security operations, like those carried out in Hit so far. And the third is humanitarian assistance and community outreach.

That means that in addition to their regular complement of tanks, mortars, and grenades, the marines have headed in with a marine lawyer, $20,000 to pay for any damage, and dozens of soccer balls.

The marines have also come in with about 20 members of an Iraqi special forces unit called the Freedom Fighters. Unlike local Iraqi guard units, who are usually unwilling to fight, the freedom fighters are Shiites from the southern city of Basra, where uprisings against Saddam Hussein's regime were put down with the wholesale slaughter of civilians. There's little love between them and the Sunni Arab citizens of Anbar.

On this night in Hit, the marines found some of what they came in search of: two large weapons caches - including 115 mortar rounds and a couple of World War II-vintage 200-lb bombs - buried in lots next to houses. Intelligence came from surprising places: after a father wasn't helpful, the son pointed to the caches after being offered a $20 bill.

But at about 5 a.m. Tuesday, Bravo company got a taste of the dangers that still lurk here. A sedan turned onto the street in front of the schoolhouse they'd occupied and began speeding toward the Abrams tank the marines were using to seal off the road. The machine-gunner opened up on the car and hit the driver, a Syrian national, at least three times.

A few moments later, another man who'd been in the car made for the trunk. He, too, was shot dead.

The car was loaded with rocket-propelled grenades, mortar rounds, and a mortar tube. The marines think the men were trying to make it out of the city.

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