March 29, 2004

By Gidget Fuentes
Times staff writer

RAMADI, Iraq — Marines stationed M1A1 Abrams tanks at a highway interchange in Fallujah late Saturday afternoon, just 24 hours after the Marine Corps’ first major combat offensive since returning to Iraq earlier this month.
One Marine was killed and an unknown number of others were wounded during the operation, which began at dawn Friday when about 600 Marines stormed into the city, said 1st Lt. Eric Knapp, a spokesman for the 1st Marine Division, on Saturday.

They seized a key highway cloverleaf and a warehouse district from which mortar and rocket attacks have been directed against U.S. military convoys, he said.

The offensive came just two days after 25,000 Marines with I Marine Expeditionary Force took control of Anbar Province, assuming responsibility for the region from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in a Wednesday afternoon ceremony at Camp Fallujah.

In the Friday offensive, Marines with 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, and Regimental Combat Team 1 entered the city’s outskirts and came under fire from insurgents armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. The Marines killed “quite a few” attackers as well as “people they believed were calling for attacks with cell phones,” Knapp said.

Defense officials on Monday released the name of a Marine with 2/1 who was killed during fighting Friday, but it was not immediately clear whether the Marine died during the operation in Fallujah. Killed was Pfc. Leroy Sandoval Jr., 21, of Houston.

Even before the Marines took control last week of Anbar Province, which includes the cities of Fallujah and the provincial capital of Ramadi, military forces at bases in the region have suffered attacks on a nearly daily basis. On Saturday, an improvised explosive device detonated on a road near Ramadi, damaging a Humvee and causing at least two casualties, which division officials could not confirm late Saturday.

Marine Corps officials weren’t saying whether the Fallujah operation was intended as a show of force, but have said they expect to be aggressive against attackers who threaten their troops and reconstruction efforts.

“The overall message is: ‘We are in control of the city now, not you,’” Knapp said. “We are trying to make the highway through Fallujah safe for Iraqis and our personnel.”

Knapp said the heaviest weapon the Marines used during the Fallujah operation was a .50-caliber machine gun. “There wasn’t any door kicking-down,” he said, referring to initial reports of Marines searching homes. They entered some warehouses and vacant buildings during their assault, he said.

Members of the Iraqi police and Civil Defense Corps assisted the Marines during the operation, Knapp said.

Battalion commanders met Saturday with local officials and leaders in Fallujah as Marines kept vigil, he said.