It Sure *Seems* Like a Combat Operation

Maybe not a "major" one, but those ended back in May of 2003. Was the raid on Fallujah that resulted in 7 dead a "minor" combat operation? Or a "non-combat" operation? Or was it combat, just not an "operation"?

U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a joint raid in the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah early Wednesday, killing seven people, Iraqi officials said.

President Barack Obama declared the end of combat operations in Iraq on Sept. 1 when the number of American troops fell below 50,000. The remaining soldiers can fire to defend themselves and their bases. Their primary focus is on training Iraqi security forces and taking part in operations hunting insurgents only at the request of the Iraqi government.

Insurgents have intensified their strikes on Iraqi security forces to mark the change in the U.S. mission, and on Wednesday a roadside bomb killed nine Iraqi soldiers near the northern city of Mosul.

The raid in Fallujah, a former bastion of the Sunni-led insurgency located 40 miles west of Baghdad, took place around 2 a.m. when Iraqi special forces and American troops cordoned off a neighborhood before raiding several houses, police and hospital officials said. Seven people were killed in the raid.

Police officials said they did not have any information on whom the troops were after, but such raids have in the past targeted suspected insurgents or al-Qaida militants.

A security official in the city said the American and Iraqi forces took four of the dead bodies with them and the other three were taken by local police to the morgue.

By: Brant