Resistance Rages to Lift Pressure Off Fallujah

Meanwhile, a US military helicopter was downed late Friday in Baghdad , with strategists warning other “Fallujahs” could possibly be in the making all across Iraq .

A Black Hawk helicopter was shot down northeast of Baghdad Friday afternoon, injuring three of the four crew members, according to a US military spokeswoman.

“A U8- 60Black Hawk helicopter was shot down by anti-Iraqi forces,” she told Agence France-Presse (AFP), using army terminology for Iraqi resistance fighters.

“Four members of the (US-led) multi-national force were on board. Three were injured but their injuries are unknown at this time,” the spokeswoman added.

She was unable to confirm whether the trio were from the United States , which comprises the vast majority of the foreign military presence in Iraq .

On Thursday, two US helicopters were forced to make an emergency landing in Iraq after taking serious small arms and rocket propelled grenade fire.

Mosul , Baghdad Rage

While US troops say they tightened their grip on Fallujah Friday, clashes raged with fighters in Iraq 's main northern city of Mosul , where gunmen roamed the streets, and in the capital where one US soldier was killed.

Despite the imposition of a night-time curfew, at least five Iraqis were killed in the Sunni Arab town of Hawijah , as unrest flared across Sunni areas of central and northern Iraq .

Despite the declared US military successes, commanders expressed fear that many “insurgents” (US term for resistance fighters) had fled Fallujah before the battle for the city started Monday and were now operating in other Sunni Arab flashpoints such as Iraq 's third city of Mosul .

As the Fallujah assault entered its fifth day, US tanks rolled freely, while thousands of US troops, backed by Iraqi soldiers, moved house-to-house to root out pockets of insurgents.

“What is left (to take), comparatively speaking, is a small piece of what we started with,” said marine spokesman Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert.

“We control it (Fallujah) in the sense that we are ever present but it will still take some time to secure it,” he told AFP, without giving a timeframe.

A relentless barrage of US firepower over the past week has turned Fallujah into a ghost city, said an AFP reporter embedded with the marines.

Victory in Fallujah looked set to come at a heavy price and also appeared unlikely to crush “an insurgency” that has plagued Iraq since last year's US-led invasion, threatening nationwide elections promised for January, according to AFP.

In the face of the onslaught in Fallujah, some resistance fighters appeared to have shifted elsewhere, with bombings and other attacks across the Sunni belt prompting curfews on seven cities.

In the capital, a US soldier was killed when his unit came under attack by improvised explosive devices, small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, the US military said.

Two other soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter were wounded.

Gunmen roamed the streets of Mosul , but the US military insisted the city of more than a million people remained under control a day after it unleashed air and ground strikes on suspected resistance positions after the governor asked for help.

One US soldier and several Iraqi fighters were killed in Thursday's clashes.

In Hawijah, at least five Iraqis were killed and six wounded when anti-occupation fighters clashed with police, national guards and US troops, police said.

“We do not know if the dead are civilians or rebels,” said the town's police chief, Colonel Ahmad al-Obeidi.

Other Fallujahs

Strategists, meanwhile, warned that fighters led by the most wanted man in Iraq , Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, may be already regrouping for other Fallujahs, even as the US war machine unleashes its might on the rebel city.

Both US and Iraqi commanders have expressed astonishment at the weak level of resistance they have encountered in Fallujah, which analysts say proves that many fighters have bolted out already to lick their wounds and fight another day, leaving the defense of the city to home-grown fighters.

“Some of the fighters may have swam across the river and melted away into the hinterlands,” Major General Abdul Qader Mohan, Iraqi commander for Operation Dawn in Fallujah, told AFP. “They saw this (assault) coming.”

In Samarra , a predominantly Sunni city north of Baghdad , a US military captain told AFP on condition of anonymity that while US-led forces are winning the military fight, resistance fighters have increasingly “terrorized” the city's residents.

“Security is still our biggest concern,” the captain said.

The officer said that Samarra 's police chief resigned Thursday; a worrying development because he gave no reason for quitting and had been handpicked to keep the city in line after heavy fighting last month.

Iraqi and US forces launched a massive operation in Samarra in early October to regain control of the city, but US military commanders acknowledge that many of the fighters went to ground after the brief assault.

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