Today in Manhunting History -- November 16, 2004: The Fall of Fallujah

During the April 2004 Marine offensive, the CIA determined the torture studio in which Abu Musab al-Zarqawi murdered Nicholas Berg was located in Fallujah’s Jolan District. Major General James Mattis proposed joint U.S.-Iraqi patrols in Jolan to pursue Zarqawi, but the ineffectual commander of the “Fallujah Brigade” declined. In June, U.S. aircraft began dropping pamphlets over Fallujah urging residents to turn in Zarqawi, who had a $10 million bounty on his head. But this effort also produced no tangible results.

U.S. forces began kinetic action against Zarqawi’s network in Fallujah through the only means available to them, killing 18 Iraqis in an airstrike against a suspected safe house on June 19. On July 1 the reward for Zarqawi’s capture was raised to $25 million, the same amount as for Osama bin Laden. In August, U.S. forces began conducting almost nightly airstrikes against targets in Fallujah believed to be affiliated with the terrorist. Although Zarqawi himself was never touched, his organization suffered significant losses, including the deaths of Abu Anas al-Shami, his spiritual advisor, and Abu Muhammad al-Lubnani, a Palestinian advisor described as his right-hand man.

On October 14, the Iraqi Interim Government raised the stakes when Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi warned insurgents: “If Zarqawi and his group are not handed over to us, we are ready for major operations in Fallujah.” When the leaders of Fallujah’s insurgents refused, U.S. forces launched a massive offensive to retake the city. For over a week, U.S. forces engaged in intense house-to-house fighting against heavily fortified positions defended by approximately 3,000 insurgents, destroying much of the city in the process. Major combat in Fallujah effectively ended with the destruction of Zarqawi’s command center on November 16. Although U.S. commanders determined that Zarqawi had fled the city before the offensive, Zarqawi later released an audiotape condemning Sunni clerics for abandoning him in Fallujah. While the offensive deprived Zarqawi of a key base of operations, his influence and prominence, as well as the levels of violence in Iraq, only increased.