U.S. forces declare victory

Troops scour Fallujah for insurgents. At least 38 American troops and six Iraqi soldiers have been killed since the offensive operation began Nov. 7.

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Fight for Fallujah

NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. and Iraqi security forces scoured Fallujah for remaining fighters and pounded the southernmost neighborhoods of the city with heavy artillery and bombs late into Sunday, as military commanders declared victory seven days after launching the largest military operation since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last year.

"The city has been seized," said Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. "We have liberated the city of Fallujah."

At least 38 American troops and six Iraqi soldiers have been killed since the offensive operation began Nov. 7. Three of the deaths resulted from noncombat injuries. The number of U.S. troops wounded is now 275, though more than 60 have returned to duty. U.S. officials estimated more than 1,200 insurgents were killed in the fighting.

Marines found the mutilated body of a Western woman Sunday in a street as they searched for the remaining fighters, the Associated Press reported. The disemboweled body, which could not be immediately identified, was wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket, the Marines said.

Two Western women abducted last month from Baghdad are known to be missing. Margaret Hassan, 59, director of CARE International in Iraq, and Teresa Borcz Khalifa, 54, a Polish-born longtime resident of Iraq, were both taken at gunpoint.

U.S. forces have spread throughout the city, although it could take several more days of fighting before the city is secured, American officials said. U.S. forces on Sunday attacked a bunker complex in southern Fallujah where they discovered a network of steel-reinforced tunnels filled with weapons, anantiaircraft artillery gun, bunk beds, a truck and a suspected weapons cache, according to a statement from the U.S. military.

Marines reopened the infamous bridge over the Euphrates River where Iraqis strung up the charred bodies of two American contractors in March. The brutal slaying and mutilation of the four Blackwater Security Consulting employees touched off a Marine assault in April.

"It's symbolic, because the insurgents closed the bridge and we reopened it," said Maj. Todd Des Grosseilliers of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, before Marines rolled away a coil of concertina wire and crossed the span over the Euphrates River on foot.

In April, 2,000 Marines fought for three weeks and failed to take Fallujah from its insurgent defenders. This time, war planners sent six times the troops, who fought their way across the rebel city in just six days - far more quickly than expected, the Marine general who designed the ground attack said Sunday.

"We had the green light this time and we went all the way," Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski told the AP.

Natonski said he and other planners took lessons from the failed U.S. assault on the city in April, which was called off by the Bush administration after a worldwide outcry over civilian deaths.

This time the military used swarms of aircraft - more than 20 types - that pounded the city before and during the assault. Troops also faked attacks before the assault to confuse enemy fighters.

"Maybe we learned from April," Natonski said. "We learned we can't do it piecemeal. When we go in, we go all the way through."

Natonski described the first six days of ground war as a "flawless execution of the plan we drew up."

"We are actually ahead of schedule," he said.

With Iraqi soldiers following closely behind, the Marines went door-to-door Sunday, searching for fighters and stockpiles of weapons. A day earlier, advancing Army units found evidence of a highly trained and well-organized fighting force dressed in professional military uniforms.

"The enemy is broken into very small groups," Sattler said during a visit with wounded troops Sunday at a Navy field hospital outside the city, about 35 miles west of Baghdad. "They don't have eyes. They can't see outside. They are truly broken into isolated pockets."

U.S. and Iraqi forces have detained more than 1,000 military-age males since the battle started, and Sattler said he expected two-thirds would be questioned and freed. U.S. forces failed to capture Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian leader of a group linked to al-Qaida that has claimed responsibility for numerous car bombings targeting Iraqi civilians and security forces, assassinations of local leaders and beheadings of foreign hostages.

"I feel we really had an impact" on al-Zarqawi's network, Sattler said. "We don't know where he is. Maybe he's dead and we don't know. We weren't really focused on him."

Although Iraqi forces fought mainly in the rear of advancing U.S. troops, they were responsible for keeping areas clear after the Americans pushed through, a role military commanders said would remain vitally important after the official combat operation had ended.

Sattler said U.S. forces would keep a "hand on the shoulder" of the Iraqi security forces.

Bands of rebels were still roving neighborhoods crushed by tons of U.S. bombs and shells. The holdouts are harried by U.S. forces who occupy - but have yet to subdue - the entire city.

"There are groups numbering from five to 30," Natonski said. "They're trying to get behind us."

Military officials said it would take days to finish the fight.

As troops uproot the insurgents, contractors are supposed to swarm into Fallujah in coming weeks to cart away rubble, repair buildings, and fix the city's water, sewer and electricity systems.

The Iraqi government has already picked leaders for Fallujah, and thousands of Iraqi police and paramilitary forces have been recruited to try to impose order - critical to the U.S. goal of setting conditions for elections in Fallujah and the rest of Anbar province.

To prevent the insurgents' return, Iraqi forces will halt all traffic flowing in and out of the city - once roads reopen - checking IDs and looking for suspects, Natonski said.

-- Information from the Washington Post and Associated Press was used in this report.

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