U.S. Forces Have 'Liberated' Fallujah, Commander Says

Marines Find Mutilated Body Believed to Be Western Woman

A U.S. Marine stands guard over an arrested Iraqi in Fallujah on Sunday. (Patrick Baz - AFP)

FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov. 14 -- A top Marine commander in Iraq said on Sunday that "we have liberated" Fallujah six days after the U.S.-led assault against the insurgent stronghold began and efforts would continue against isolated pockets of resistance fighters.

"We will not stop until we have cleared each and every building in town," said Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, from a military outpost near the Sunni Muslim city.

Sattler said at least 31 American troops and six Iraqi soldiers have died in the assault and that the number of U.S. wounded was "up in the high 200s," with some of those already returned to duty.

[In Fallujah on Sunday, Marines reported discovering the mutilated body of what they thought was a Western woman. The body was lying on a street covered with a blood-soaked cloth.]

Sattler's remarks on liberating Fallujah echoed those of senior Iraqi officials late in the week, as U.S. forces on Saturday continued intense combat operations aimed at securing the last section of the city. The rebel force they were confronting was fighting with surprising discipline, organization and the trappings of a professional army, according to American commanders.

In the southernmost section of Fallujah, where a showdown still loomed, U.S. soldiers discovered an underground bunker and steel-enforced tunnels connecting a ring of houses filled with weapons, medical supplies and bunk beds.

The fighters in the area were armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, and dressed in blue camouflage uniforms with full military battle gear. U.S. soldiers reported finding American Meals Ready to Eat and other equipment that the U.S. government donated earlier this year to set up a local security force, which was quickly corrupted and taken over by insurgents.

The interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, announced "a clear-cut victory over the insurgents and terrorists" in Fallujah but acknowledged that fighters had taken parts of the northern city of Mosul and had attacked sites in several other cities.

Commanders said the fighters in Fallujah exhibited far more skill on the battlefield than the ragtag insurgents who had fleetingly engaged U.S.-led security forces in the first days of the battle.

"When we found those boys in that bunker with their equipment, it became a whole new ballgame," said Pfc. Troy Langley, 19, of Wister, Okla., who is assigned to Task Force 2-2 of the Army's 1st Infantry Division. "The way these guys fight is different than the insurgents."

As early as Friday, senior Iraqi officials were announcing that the battle for Fallujah was over in time for Iraqis to celebrate the end of Ramadan on Sunday in peace.

"It is with all pleasure that I announce to you that operation New Dawn has been concluded," the minister of state for national security, Qasim Dawood, said at a news conference in Baghdad, as Marine artillery and aerial gunships continued to pummel Fallujah 35 miles to the west. "Major operations have been brought to a conclusion."

U.S. soldiers and Marines, meanwhile, kept fighting.

"We control 90 percent, but the 10 percent that's left is the most difficult," said Capt. Erik Krivda, a member of Task Force 2-2 tactical operations command from Gaithersburg.