Iraq: September 26, 2004

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The "war" in Iraq is a low key affair. In the last two weeks, there have been about 70 "hostile incidents" a day, resulting in one or two friendly casualties (nearly 90 percent of the them Iraqi) per incident. The U.S. Department of Defense still refuses to release any official numbers on enemy casualties (although data on this is carefully compiled), but the enemy losses are believed to be 3-4 times higher. Even Iraqi troops, benefiting from superior training (particularly in marksmanship and tactics) are giving much better than they are getting. Increasingly, the fighting is occurring around the towns and neighborhoods that the anti-government forces call home. Increasing amounts of information from pro-government informers in these areas has led to daily smart bomb and artillery attacks on specific houses or compounds being used by anti-government fighters.  Fallujah has been particularly hard hit, and the al Qaeda men operating in that town are taking heavy losses. American and Iraqi troops are also moving closer to Fallujah, with raids being conducted to take prisoners and capture documents and weapons.

 

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