The Battle of Ramadi was fought in the spring of 2004, during the same time as the

First Battle of Fallujah The First Battle of Fallujah, code-named Operation Vigilant Resolve, was an operation against militants in Fallujah as well as an attempt to apprehend or kill the perpetrators of the killing of four U.S. contractors in March 2004. The chief ca ...

, for control of the

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

of the

Al Anbar Governorate Al Anbar Governorate ( ar, محافظة الأنبار; ''muḥāfaẓat al-’Anbār''), or Anbar Province, is the largest governorate in Iraq by area. Encompassing much of the country's western territory, it shares borders with Syria, Jordan, ...

in western Iraq. A coalition military force consisting of the

2nd Battalion, 4th Marines 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines (2/4th Marines) is an infantry battalion of the United States Marine Corps. The battalion, nicknamed the ''Magnificent Bastards'' from the Vietnam War, is based out of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California and ...

were stationed to defend the city from attack. In April 2004,

Fallujah Fallujah ( ar, ٱلْفَلُّوجَة, al-Fallūjah, Iraqi pronunciation: ) is a city in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar, located roughly west of Baghdad on the Euphrates. Fallujah dates from Babylonian times and was host to important Jew ...

was under siege by Coalition Forces and insurgents were looking to relieve pressure on the city by attempting an offensive of their own.

Ramadi Ramadi ( ar, ٱلرَّمَادِي ''Ar-Ramādī''; also formerly rendered as ''Rumadiyah'' or ''Rumadiya'') is a city in central Iraq, about west of Baghdad and west of Fallujah. It is the capital and largest city of Al Anbar Governorate w ...

, the capital of Al Anbar Province, was seen as a

center of gravity In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space (sometimes referred to as the balance point) is the unique point where the weight function, weighted relative position (vector), position of the distributed mass sums to zero. Thi ...

to coalition forces, and thus a critical city in western Iraq. Before the battle started, insurgents cut off the highway out of Al Anbar to

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

. On April 6, 2004,

Marines Marines, or naval infantry, are typically a military force trained to operate in littoral zones in support of naval operations. Historically, tasks undertaken by marines have included helping maintain discipline and order aboard the ship (refle ...

fought with insurgents throughout the city in running gun battles that day. At the end of the first day of fighting 12 Marines had been killed in action. The following day fighting continued. Over the course of a four-day period it was reported 250 insurgents had been killed. By the end of the battalion's tour in September 2004 33 Marines were

KIA Kia Corporation, commonly known as Kia (, ; formerly known as Kyungsung Precision Industry and Kia Motors Corporation), is a South Korean multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. It is South Korea's second lar ...

. The city remain an unstable environment throughout the course of the 2000s which lead to the subsequent battle in 2006.

April 6, 2004

Beginning at 1048, Company G received small arms and RPG fire in the al-Maab District. The insurgents were pursued to a near by building were two squads and a quick reaction force continued fighting from 1145-1205. From there the squads were pinned down and the quick reaction force move to a support position where they were engaged one block east of Company G's position.

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

Christopher J. Bronzi, commander of the company, led his Marines in 24 hours of action. At one point he led a team onto the street to recover the body of a fallen Marine.

References

External links

Zoroya, Gregg. "Fight for Ramadi exacts heavy toll on Marines." ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

''. 12 July 2004. URL:https://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-07-12-ramadi_x.htm. Accessed: 2009-10-09 (archived by

WebCite WebCite was an on-demand archive site, designed to digitally preserve scientific and educationally important material on the web by taking snapshots of Internet contents as they existed at the time when a blogger or a scholar cited or quoted ...

at https://www.webcitation.org/5kPS9x7tW). Battles of the Iraq War in 2004 Battles of the Iraq War involving the United States United States Marine Corps in the Iraq War History of Ramadi April 2004 events in Iraq {{Iraq-hist-stub

April 6, 2004

See also

References

External links