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Fallujah

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This article is about the city of Fallujah in Iraq. For detailed information on the events of war in Fallujah, see US occupation of Fallujah.
For the site in Israel (formerly an Arab town), see al-Faluja.
For the district in Iraq, see Fallujah (district)
Fallujah's location in Iraq
Fallujah's location in Iraq
Fallujah skyline before November 2004 battle

Fallujah (Arabic: الفلوجة; sometimes transliterated as Falluja or Fallouja) is a city in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar, located roughly 69 km (43 miles) west of Baghdad on the Euphrates. Fallujah dates from Babylonian times and was host to important Jewish academies for many centuries. The city grew from a small town in 1947 to a pre-war population of about 350,000 inhabitants in 2003. The current population is unknown but estimated at over 350,000, with approximately 300 new residents arriving monthly. Within Iraq, it is known as the "city of mosques" for the more than 200 mosques found in the city and surrounding villages. The war has reportedly damaged 60% of the city's buildings, with 20% totally destroyed including 60 of the city's mosques.

History

The region has been inhabited for many millennia. There is evidence that the area surrounding Fallujah was inhabited in Babylonian times. The etymology of the town's name is in some doubt, but one theory is that its Syriac name, Pallgutha, is derived from the word division. The city's name in Aramaic is Pumbedita.

The region of Fallujah was a part of the Sassanid Persian province of Anbar. The word anbar is Persian and means "warehouse". This region was considered to be the warehouse of the Sassanid troops. [4] The city of Fallujah itself was called Misiche at that time.

The city played host for several centuries to one of the most important Jewish academies, the Pumbedita Academy, which from 258 CE to 1038 was one of the two most important centers of Jewish learning worldwide. [5]

Under the Ottoman Empire, Fallujah was a minor stop on one of the country's main roads across the desert west from Baghdad.

In the spring of 1920, the British, who had gained control of Iraq after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, sent Lt Col Gerard Leachman, a renowned explorer and a senior colonial officer, to meet with local leader Shaykh Dhari, perhaps to waiver a loan given to the sheikh. Exactly what happened depends on the source, but according to the arab version, Gerard Leachman was betrayed by the sheikh who had his relatives shoot him in the leg, then stabbed him to death.[6]

During the brief Anglo-Iraqi War of 1941, the Iraqi army was defeated by the British in a battle near Fallujah. In 1947 the town had only about 10,000 inhabitants. It grew rapidly into a city after Iraqi independence with the influx of oil wealth into the country. Its position on one of the main roads out of Baghdad made it of central importance.

Under Saddam Hussein, who ruled Iraq from 1979 to 2003, Fallujah came to be an important area of support for the regime, along with the rest of the region labeled by the US military as the "Sunni Triangle". Many residents of the primarily Sunni city were employees and supporters of Saddam's government, and many senior Ba'ath Party officials were natives of the city. Fallujah was heavily industrialised during the Saddam era, with the construction of several large factories, including one closed down by United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in the 1990s that may have been used to create chemical weapons. A new highway system (a part of Saddam's infrastructure initiatives) circumvented Fallujah and gradually caused the city to decline in national importance by the time of the Iraq War.[1]

Fallujah as seen from the west in April 2004

Gulf War, 1991

During the Gulf War, Fallujah suffered one of the highest tolls of civilian casualties. Two separate failed bombing attempts on Fallujah's bridge across the Euphrates River hit crowded markets, killing an estimated 200 civilians.

The first bombing occurred early in the Gulf War. A British jet intending to bomb the bridge dropped two laser-guided bombs on the city's main market. Between 50 and 150 civilians died and many more were injured. In the second incident, Coalition forces attacked Fallujah's bridge over the Euphrates with four laser-guided bombs. At least one struck the bridge while one or two bombs fell short in the river. The fourth bomb hit another market elsewhere in the city, reportedly due to failure of its laser guidance system.[2]

Iraq War, 2003

Main article: United States occupation of Fallujah
File:Downtown fallujah.jpg
Downtown Fallujah, December 2003

Fallujah was one of the least affected areas of Iraq immediately after the 2003 invasion by the US-led Coalition. Iraqi Army units stationed in the area abandoned their positions and disappeared into the local population, leaving unsecured military equipment behind. Fallujah was also the site of a Ba'athist resort facility called 'Dreamland', located only a few kilometers outside the city proper.

The damage the city had avoided during the initial invasion was negated by damage from looters, who took advantage of the collapse of Saddam's regime. The looters targeted former government sites, the Dreamland compound, and the nearby military bases. Buildings were stripped of anything of value, including floor tiles, window frames, and door frames. Aggravating this situation was the proximity of Fallujah to the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, from which Saddam, in one of his last acts, had released all prisoners.

Citizens of Fallujah had to defend their own homes and property from these looters and criminals in the absence of peace-keeping authorities. The new mayor of the city—Taha Bidaywi Hamed, selected by local tribal leaders—was strongly pro-American. When the US Army entered the town in April 2003, they positioned themselves at the vacated Ba'ath Party headquarters. A Fallujah Protection Force composed of local Iraqis was set up by the US-led occupants to help fight the rising resistance.

On the evening of April 28, 2003, a crowd of 200 people defied a curfew imposed by the Americans and gathered outside a secondary school used as a military HQ to demand its reopening. Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne stationed on the roof of the building opened fire on the crowd, resulting in the deaths of 17 civilians and the wounding of over 70. [3]. The events leading up to the event are disputed. American forces claim they were responding to gunfire from the crowd, while the Iraqis involved deny this version, although conceding rocks were thrown at the troops. A protest against the killings two days later was also fired upon by US troops resulting in two more deaths.

The shootings aggravated feelings against the occupation. Over the next year, various Sunni rebel groups, including foreign terrorists aligned to al-Qaeda[citation needed], entrenched themselves in the city, using it as a command base and a symbol of defiance against the multinational forces and the interim Iraqi government, to whom sovereignty was returned in July 2004.

On March 31 2004, Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah ambushed a convoy containing four American private military contractors from Blackwater USA, who were conducting delivery for food caterers ESS.[4]

The four armed contractors, Scott Helvenston, Jerry (Jerko) Zovko, Wesley Batalona, and Michael Teague, were dragged from their cars, beaten, and set on fire. Their burned corpses were then dragged through the streets before being hung over a bridge crossing the Euphrates.[5][6] This bridge is unofficially referred to as "Blackwater Bridge" by Coalition Forces operating there.[7][8]

This led to an abortive US operation to recapture control of the city in Operation Vigilant Resolve, and a successful recapture operation in the city in November 2004, called Operation Phantom Fury in English and Operation Al Fajr in Arabic. Operation Phantom Fury resulted in the reputed death of over 1,200 insurgent fighters. Approximately 100 American Marines were killed, and over 1,000 wounded. According to local sources, hundreds of civilians were among those killed. [citation needed]

The U.S. military first denied that it has used white phosphorous as an anti-personnel weapon in Fallujah, but later retracted that denial, and admitted to using the substance against insurgents as an offensive weapon. Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). According to NBC, 9,000 homes were destroyed, thousands more were damaged and of the 32,000 compensation claims only 2,500 have been paid as of April 14 2005.[9] According to Mike Marqusee of Iraq Occupation Focus writing in the Guardian, "Fallujah's compensation commissioner has reported that 36,000 of the city's 50,000 homes were destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65 mosques and shrines".[10] Reconstruction mainly consists of clearing rubble from heavily-damaged areas and reestablishing basic utility services. Ten per cent of the pre-offensive inhabitants had returned as of mid-January 2005, and 30% as of the end of March 2005.[11]

Pre-offensive inhabitant figures are unreliable; the nominal population was assumed to have been 250,000-350,000. Thus, over 150,000 individuals are still living as IDPs in tent cities or with relatives outside Fallujah or elsewhere in Iraq. Current estimates by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and Coalition Forces put the city's population at over 350,000, possibly closing in on half a million.

In the aftermath of the offensive, relative calm was restored to Fallujah.

In December 2006, enough control had been exerted over the city to transfer operational control of the city from American forces to the 1st Iraqi Army Division. During the same month, the Fallujah police force began major offensive operations under their new chief. Coalition Forces, as of May 2007, are operating in direct support of the Iraqi Security Forces in the city. The city is one of Anbar province's centers of gravity in a newfound optimism among American and Iraqi leadership about the state of the counterinsurgency in the region.[12][13]

In June 2007, Regimental Combat Team 6 began Operation Alljah, a security plan modeled on a successful operation in Ramadi. After segmenting districts of the city, Iraqi Police and Coalition Forces established police district headquarters in order to further localize the law enforcement capabilites of the Iraqi Police.[14]

A similar program was met with success in the city of Ramadi in late 2006 and early 2007.

See also

References

  1. ^ Global Security, Fallujah
  2. ^ Human Rights Watch
  3. ^ Human Rights Watch. Violent Response: The U.S. Army in al-Falluja, Part IV. Accessed 13 May 2007.
  4. ^ "The high-risk contracing business", Frontline, PBS. Accessed 13 May 2007.
  5. ^ Fisk, Robert. Report, The Independent, 1 April 2004. Accessed 13 May 2007.
  6. ^ Chandrasekaran, Rajiv (2007). Imperial Life in the Emerald City. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-7475-9168-9. p 305.
  7. ^ Washington Post. Private security contractors living on edge in Iraq Photographs of the event were released to news agencies worldwide, causing outrage in the United States, and prompting the announcement of a campaign to reestablish American control over the city.
  8. ^ Chandrasekaran, Rajiv (2007). Imperial Life in the Emerald City. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-7475-9168-9. p 305.
  9. ^ [1]
  10. ^ The Guardian.
  11. ^ [2].
  12. ^ New York Times, "Plan B? Let's Give Plan A a Chance First"
  13. ^ Seattle Times, "Anbar province revitalized as it tames insurgents"
  14. ^ [3]

33°21′N 43°47′E / 33.350°N 43.783°E / 33.350; 43.783

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