U.S. "outposts" hold line in Ramadi, Iraq

By Patrick J. McDonnell

RAMADI, Iraq - Hunkered down in the turquoise-domed Islamic Law Center, a dozen Marines wait for the enemy to make its inevitable move. Insurgents equipped with Soviet-made sniper rifles keep the building in their cross-hairs. Assailants with AK-47s and grenade launchers regularly peer from nearby alleys and roofs. Attacks can come from anywhere.

The wait is unnerving, but it’s better than being in the streets of this turbulent city. On Wednesday, a Marine convoy was attacked here with a roadside bomb and as many as 100 insurgents unleashed a barrage of small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades in rolling firefights that lasted for much of the day. Thirteen Marines and one soldier were injured, and the U.S. military reported killing 25 fighters.

"When you walk on the streets, they can hide in every nook and cranny and you can never find them until they start shooting," said Marine Cpl. Glenn Hamby, 26, who heads Squad 3 of G Company. "Here, they have to come right to us."

This is what the war has come down to in Iraq’s Sunni Muslim heartland, where providing tenuous security harkens back to America’s 19th century Indian Wars, a time when the cavalry set up outposts and forts in decidedly hostile territory.

A half-dozen or so such Marine observation posts dot Ramadi’s main drag, linking heavily fortified bases and helping to keep the inhospitable city from turning into a Fallujah-like sanctuary for insurgents.

U.S. troops have walked away from Fallujah, 30 miles to the east. But here in the capital of strategic Al Anbar province, the fight goes on day after day.

Although it has acquired great symbolic potency as a symbol of armed resistance, Fallujah is basically a backwater with no strategic significance. Ramadi, on the other hand, with 450,000 residents, is the economic and political hub along Highway 10 in the Sunni Muslim heartland.

It also is the gateway to Syria and Jordan, brimming with potential recruits for the jihad against "infidel" invaders. Marines in Ramadi simply did not have the luxury of walking away.

The aggressive patrols that marked the Marines’ arrival this spring were met with frenzied and bloody insurgent attacks, leading to some of the heaviest U.S. losses of the Iraq war - 31 dead and more than 200 wounded. Since the patrols have given way to the more modulated "outposting" strategy, however, U.S. deaths have dropped dramatically.

The insurgents know exactly where the Marines are and regard the posts as prime targets. Four Marines were killed last month when their post was overrun in the early-morning darkness. Stunning images of the sniper team’s dead and bloodied bodies sprawled on a rooftop were captured on videotape and broadcast worldwide.

Marine commanders decline to provide details on how the post could have been taken - apparently by surprise, with no time for backup to arrive.

The ferocity of the fighting in Ramadi and the tenacity of the insurgents have produced a very specific view of who the enemy is here: a mostly home-grown mix of anti-U.S. nationalists, loyalists of Saddam Hussein’s former regime and a seemingly endless supply of part-time fighters - many former members of the Iraqi army - willing to pick up a rifle or grenade launcher to fire at U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies.

Most insurgents here, the Marines say, are natives of the Ramadi area, where the insular tribal culture and tradition of cross-border smuggling have long featured an undercurrent of violence and suspicion of outsiders. Even Saddam’s regime had difficulty exerting full control.

Neither foreign fighters nor religious militants drive the insurgency here, commanders say, though both strains are present. "It’s one big overlapping mishmash," said Maj. Michael Wylie, the battalion executive officer.

Marines speak of a classic urban-guerrilla force, a transient, elusive enemy that quickly melts into the population, spiriting away all evidence of its presence.

"It’s like ghost fighters," Hamby said. "You can get into a firefight, and afterward when you go to the exact spot you were firing at, you won’t find any shell cases, bodies, nothing. They grab everything and they’re gone."

When it comes time for the Marines of Squad 3 to end their 12-hour shift at the Islamic Law Center, several Humvees block all traffic along Highway 10 and form a safety cordon with machines guns at the ready. Other Marines dismount and train their weapons on buildings, passers-by and vehicles.

Relieving troops sprint the final 10 meters or so to the metal front door, which is quickly opened and shut.

The four-story brick and concrete structure offers a strategic perch near downtown. Claymore mines are laid inside the walls of the now thoroughly trashed center, where junked computers still sit in a classroom and bookshelves brim with law books in Arabic, English and French.

Marines say their task here is mostly about waiting, watching for insurgents planting IEDs (improvised explosive devices) or laying ambushes, and then repelling the assault.

That morning, assailants with AK-47s were seen mingling among civilians at a taxi stand across the street to the north. A pickup truck disgorged more fighters from the east. At least three attackers were killed in the ensuing, adrenaline-charged 10-minute battle, the Marines say; no Marines were hurt.

"Personally, I see this as a stalemate: We could keep fighting in this same manner forever," said Lance Cpl. David Goward, 26. "They have no shortage of weapons. And neither do we. As long as Americans are here, they’re going to keep on fighting."

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