Iraqi insurgents are celebrating their “victory” in Fallujah – broadcasting it from mosques while residents rejoice in the streets – as US marines over the weekend pulled back forces encircling the city. Marine commanders, too, are lauding the deal, which empowers soldiers of Saddam Hussein’s former army to take over security, forestalling an all-out assault on Fallujah that promised to be bloody.But even as the Marines gamble on the promises of an untested former Republican Guard general and his fledgling unit of some 1,200 soldiers, they are weighing the costs of their solution. Among them: Concerns that widespread perception of a US defeat may fuel more unrest in Iraq; and that the Marines have ceded control of an estimated 200 foreign fighters, holed up in the city they call the “nexus of evil” of Iraq’s insurgency.Full Story
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