REBUILDING IRAQ

Fallujah Success Has ‘Broken the Back’ of Insurgents

By Paul Strand
Washington Sr. Correspondent

November 19, 2004

CBN.com – WASHINGTON - The top Marine officer in Iraq says the victory in Fallujah has broken the back of the insurgents. And American troops have apparently also found the headquarters of Iraq's leading terrorist.

U.S. and Iraqi troops are still cautiously working their way through the often booby-trapped rubble of Fallujah, but in conquering the terrorist stronghold, the general in charge says his forces have broken the insurgency's back and now it is on the run.

One major accomplishment is the capture of what appears to be the command headquarters of terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Fallujah's insurgents fought the hardest here.

The building was loaded with important documents, including lists of terrorists from around the world who followed Osama bin Laden's call to come to Iraq and fight with Zarqawi.

Lt. Gen. John Sattler, the First Marine Expeditionary Force commander, said, "Our intent would be to exploit that information, and hopefully turn that into actual intelligence to go ahead and continue to breathe down his neck and bring him to justice."

Among the documents found were, according to Capt. Douglas Walter, "… sketches of aircraft – F-16, F-18; [it was] apparently some kind of training room on how to shoot down U.S. aircraft."

In another building, soldiers found tons of deadly weapons. They also stumbled upon an American vehicle outfitted as a suicide SUV.

They also found a number of suicide vests, vests that were loaded with explosives. That could be one justification why a Marine on Saturday may have felt he had to shoot dead a wounded Iraqi playing possum: even apparently-unarmed insurgents may be hiding a deadly weapon just under their shirts.

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