Falluja to Mosul - ongoing

In the northern city of Mosul, a car bomb exploded as a convoy of Iraqi National Guards passed by in the eastern part of the city, witnesses said. In recent days, an armed uprising in sympathy with Fallujah's insurgents has killed 10 Iraqi National Guards and one American soldier since Thursday, the U.S. military said.

The region's governor blamed the uprising on ''the betrayal of some police members'' and said National Guard units had arrived to help quell the violence. Also, a U.S. infantry battalion was diverted from Fallujah and sent back to Mosul because of insurgent attacks in that northern city.

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Overnight, two city mosques were hit by airstrikes after troops reported sniper fire from inside. On Saturday, two Marines were killed by a homemade bomb southeast of Fallujah.

Boston.com article

Something tells me the "insurgents" are far more organized than the U.S. military would like to believe. Maybe the belief in Allah's rewards to martyrs makes it possible for the resistance to lead the Marines around by the nose, spreading out and slipping back in, spreading out again, each group waiting its turn to play its part, each member willing to wait patiently for the time to die in glory for country and Allah. Police volunteers patiently biding their time within the ranks of Allawi's U.S.-sponsored brigades and then "betraying" them when the time is ripe. On the other hand, maybe they just get scared when the fighting approaches. Yeah, that's probably it. After all, we know the insurgents don't stand and fight like real men.

Insurgents appeared to be taking advantage of the thinning out of American troop strength around Fallujah as U.S. commanders report an increase in small-scale rebel attacks.

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Overnight, two city mosques were hit by airstrikes after troops reported sniper fire from inside. On Saturday, two Marines were killed by a homemade bomb southeast of Fallujah.

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A U.S. warplane dropped a 500-pound bomb to destroy an insurgent tunnel network in the city Saturday, according to CNN embedded correspondent Jane Arraf.

U.S. officials said they hoped the attack would be the final assault on Fallujah, followed by a house-to-house clearing operation to search for boobytraps, weapons and guerrillas hiding in the rubble.

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A four-vehicle convoy of the Iraqi Red Crescent carrying humanitarian assistance arrived at the heart of Fallujah on Saturday after the Iraqi and American troops allowed them to pass.

Well, that is one bit of better, if not good, news.

In Fallujah, Saif al-Deen al-Baghdadi, an official of the insurgents' political office, urged militants to fight U.S. forces outside Fallujah.

''I call upon the scores or hundreds of the brothers from the mujahedeen ... to press the American forces outside'' Fallujah, al-Baghdadi said in a telephone interview late Friday with Al-Jazeera television.

''We chose the path of armed jihad and say clearly that ridding Iraq of the occupation will not be done by ballots. Ayad Allawi's government ... represents the fundamentalist right-wing of the White House and not the Iraqi people,'' he said a reference to Iraq's prime minister, who gave to the go-ahead for the Fallujah invasion.

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Meanwhile, the U.S. military said four American helicopters had been hit by insurgent ground fire in two separate attacks near Fallujah. Their uninjured crews were able to return to base safely.

Earlier this week, three helicopters were downed by ground fire during the Fallujah operation.

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U.S. and Iraqi forces launched their mass ground assault against Fallujah late Monday after the city's hardline clerical leadership refused to hand over extremists, including Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has a $25 million bounty on his head from the Americans.

The clerics insisted al-Zarqawi was not there.

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Dawoud said Saturday that al-Zarqawi and Fallujah leader Abdullah al-Janabi ''have escaped.''

And how handy for the possibly one-legged, possibly dead, possibly non-existent, but certainly U.S-assisted in that he was let go three previous times, Zarqawi that the U.S. announced its big attack on Falluja for days before moving in, permitting anyone who wanted to get out plenty of time to do so.

All Falluja posts

Update 11/14: The permission for Iraq's Red Crescent to deliver humanitarian aid may have been a premature report.