Latest First Battle of Fallujah Stories

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA BAGHDAD, Iraq - Four of the five Americans killed when a U.S. security company's helicopter crashed in a dangerous Sunni neighborhood in central Baghdad were shot execution style in the back of the head, Iraqi and U.S. officials said Wednesday. A senior Iraqi military official said a machine gunner downed the helicopter, but a U.S. military official in Washington said there were no indications that the aircraft, owned by Blackwater USA, had been shot out of the sky. In...

By STEVEN R. HURST BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. security company helicopter crashed Tuesday as it flew over a dangerous Sunni neighborhood in the central Baghdad where insurgents and Iraqi security troops fought a prolonged gunbattle, and a U.S. official said five American civilians on board were killed. A senior Iraqi military official said the aircraft was shot down, but this was disputed by a U.S. military official in Washington. The Iraqi said the helicopter was hit by a machine gunner over...

WASHINGTON -- Fueled by fierce fighting in Fallujah and insurgents' counterattacks elsewhere in Iraq, the U.S. military death toll for November equalled the highest for any month of the war, according to casualty reports available Tuesday. At least 135 U.S. troops died in November. That is the same number as last April, when the insurgence flared in Fallujah and elsewhere in the so-called Sunni Triangle where U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies lost a large measure of control. On Nov. 8, U.S....

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Five Arab foreign fighters who had escaped from Fallujah were arrested near southern Basra, where they were planning to attack coalition bases and police stations, authorities said Thursday. In Fallujah, the U.S. military said it had uncovered the largest arms cache yet inside the mosque of an insurgent leader. Basra Police Chief Brig. Mohammed Khazim said the men were stopped late Wednesday at a checkpoint in Qurnah, about 37 miles north of Basra, and "personal weapons" were...