Word: fallujah
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...offered a horrifying glimpse of the kind of organized assaults that American officials fear could unfold nationwide. Imagine a day in Iraq when catastrophic car bombs rip through not just one Iraqi city but several. Explosions coordinated to go off nearly simultaneously in places like Baghdad, Baqubah, Ramadi, Fallujah and Mosul, all places where insurgents are actively pursuing bombing campaigns, could bring about the highest death daily death toll seen yet and leave no question about the insurgency's ability to hold the entire country in a deadly grip more or less at will. That's one version...
...strategy in Anbar was born of desperation and launched on the idea there was little to lose in a region where the insurgency's grip never fully loosened on cities in Anbar like Ramadi and Fallujah despite heavy fighting and high causalities by U.S. forces. "Right now there are no downsides to it," said Ambassador Lawrence Butler, who works on U.S. policy towards Iraq at the State Department in Washington. Butler said overall U.S. policy as of now aims to support the kind of tribal alliances U.S. forces have made in Anbar...
...Until now, major U.S. military offensives against Sunni militants have tended to be big set-pieces - Fallujah, Tal-Afar, Al-Qaim. Each of these operations had a long buildup, giving groups like al-Qaeda plenty of time to move their key commanders and fighters out of harm's way, leaving behind a small corps of jihadis to engage the Americans. And when the operation began, the military concentrated its energies on a single location, allowing the militants to pop up in other, relatively unprotected places...
...stationing many in small outposts dotted across the region. Unfortunately, it's one prediction that the brass got right: At least 220 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since the end of March, eclipsing the 215 who died in April and May of 2004 during the fight for Fallujah...
Blue set off for his first deployment to Iraq on July 4, 2005. He joined the Marine campaign in Anbar province, leading a platoon in the Fallujah area. Even in the desert reaches of Iraq, Blue found ways to call Bell and his younger sister Amy Blue, who was living in Ireland at the time. "Those phone calls from him were the highlights of my days," says Amy. "Hearing him across all those miles, it was like he was right there with me." He was killed halfway through a second tour in Anbar, while riding in the passenger seat...