| Battle of Ramadi (2004) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theIraq War | |||||||
 | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 United States |  Ba'ath Party loyalists[1] | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Unknown | ||||||
| Units involved | |||||||
| 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, NMCB 14, NavySeabees[2] | Unknown | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 1,800 troops | 1,000 insurgents | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 64 killed[3][4] 269 wounded | 250 killed | ||||||
 | |||||||
TheBattle of Ramadi was fought in the spring of 2004, during the same time as theFirst Battle of Fallujah, for control of thecapital of theAl Anbar Governorate in western Iraq.[5] A coalition military force consisting of the2nd Battalion, 4th Marines were stationed to defend the city from an insurgent assault.[3]
In April 2004,Fallujah was under siege by Coalition Forces and insurgents were looking to relieve pressure on the city by attempting an offensive of their own.Ramadi, the capital ofAl Anbar Province, was seen as acenter of gravity to coalition forces, and thus a critical city in western Iraq.
Before the battle started, insurgents cut off the highway out of Al Anbar toBaghdad.
On April 6, 2004,Marines 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.[3][6] The following day fighting continued.[7] Over the course of a four-day period, 250 insurgents were killed.
After six months of fighting in Ramadi, 34 Marines and a Navy corpsman had beenKIA, and 269 Marines had been wounded.[8][9] The city remained an unstable environment throughout the course of the 2000s which led to the subsequentbattle in 2006. Five NMCBSeabees were killed in action and 31 were wounded.[3]
Beginning at 10:48, Company G received small arms andRPG fire in the al-Maab District. The insurgents were pursued to a nearby building where two squads and a quick reaction force continued fighting from 11:45 to 12:05. 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 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.[10]
At approximately 13:30, an explosives device was reported in Company E’s sector, on the eastern outskirts of the city, and while cordoning off the area the company received small arms fire. At approximately the same time just to the east, one of the battalion’s sniper teams set up near the Euphrates River was attacked by 12 to 15 men. At approximately 14:00, a Company E patrol was ambushed. A quick reaction force was dispatched to reinforce the patrol when it engaged with the enemy still further to the east of the city. Two Humvees were hit, and its platoon commander was critically wounded.[10]
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