PAISAJE EN FALUYA tras la batalla:

Yesterday, however, a handful of dazed people did stumble out of their homes, where they have been running low on food and water, to see what the new order would bring. After seven months in guerrilla hands, the United States took back the city on the Euphrates in just seven days — but at a cost. Scores of houses have been bombed flat, the roads are churned up by tank tracks and most buildings show some evidence of the raging battle — bullet holes, smashed windows, walls ploughed down by armoured vehicles. Several mosques used by insurgents as bases or weapons stashes have been reduced to rubble.

Other areas have emerged relatively unscathed, although these, too, appear to be devoid of inhabitants. As stories of terrorist atrocities emerge, it is becoming clear that the people of Fallujah have long become accustomed to keeping their heads down.

Never a particularly presentable city, it is sometimes hard to tell what has been damaged by war and what has simply fallen down. Yet it was always a bustling place, with a busy market, and a traffic hub, its main street forever choked with cars and lorries heading in from Jordan.

[...] Even those who had been hurt in the attack appeared to be happy to see the American troops. One half-naked elderly man in underwear stained with blood from wounds inflicted by a US shell cursed the insurgents as he greeted advancing Marines. “I wish the Americans had come here the very first day and not waited eight months,” he said.

Another old man, who had been imprisoned by the rebels and was then petrified by the US assault, praised the American troops for driving out the gunmen. “We were happy you did what you did because Fallujah had been suffocated by the Mujahidin,” he said, recalling arbitrary killings of anyone who failed to adhere to the strict doctrine of the Wahhabi hardliners. “Anyone considered suspicious would be slaughtered. We would see unknown corpses around the city all the time.”

(via Rantburg)