US marines in dramatic rescue from enemy trap

American troops staged the most dramatic rescue of the Iraq conflict when a unit became lost and stumbled into a "wasp's nest" in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

A company of 17 US Marines held out for hours in a bombed-out house after their armoured troop carrier was destroyed by rocket-propelled grenades. They were finally rescued after a force, backed by F-15 fighter-bombers, fought its way through half a mile of enemy territory to take them to safety.

The rescue was immediately compared to movies Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down - but today American commanders were likening the fighting in Fallujah to the worst urban battles of Korea and Vietnam, and telling of tactics which were first used at the Somme.

The rescued marines had been on a supply mission to other units in Fallujah, which has been wracked by heavy fighting for more than a week. At first they approached the city in unarmoured

Humvees, but came under small-arms fire and turned back to transfer the supplies into two armoured assault vehicles.

When the new convoy entered Fallujah, it too was attacked. One managed to retreat but the other caught fire and stumbled deeper into the rebel zone.

Company commander Captain Jason Smith, 30, said: "They started taking RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] fire and tried to get out of the area, but we lost communication with them. Their engine was on fire and they were heading away from our zone.

"I saw a huge plume of smoke and I knew something was very wrong. We stumbled into a wasps' nest. They were a lot more organised than we thought." The marines fled the blazing vehicles and ran for cover in a nearby building. Within m i n u t e s , they were being at t --acked from all sides, with grenades thrown over the walls by insurgents.

The troops saved themselves by hurling back the grenades and sent an SOS to headquarters. A helicopter rescue would have been too dangerous, and likely to end in the aircraft being downed itself. Instead, a force of 25 marines, backed by four tanks and air support, was ordered in.

They fought through half a mile of gunfire to reach their comrades. Lieutenant Joshua Glover, commander of the team that reached the vehicle, said: "Within the first 500 metres, we were shooting 360 degrees. When we finally saw the [armoured personnel carrier], it was a piece of burning metal.

"People were tossing grenades from the houses on either side," Glover said. "I could hear small-arms fire, and I even saw people running across the street to try and enter the house."

Under covering fire from the tanks and planes, the rescue force was able to get the destroyed vehicle's crew into Humvees and race to safety. At least 20 insurgents were shot dead during the fighting. Details of the operation were disclosed today by a Washington Post reporter embedded with the US marines, as a ceasefire in Fallujah appeared to be in tatters.

The battle appears to have developed into a modern-day Somme, with US troops and Iraqi gunmen using every means possible to fight for territory.

Marines have knocked down walls between rooftop terraces to allow movement from house to house without descending to the street.

Insurgents are responding by digging tunnels under the houses so they can move without being targeted by US snipers, marines said.

British and German troops carried out similar operations during the trench warfare of the First World War.

Marines have also punched bricks out of walls to set up gun-slits, and spread shards of glass across doorsteps to alert them to approaching enemy fighters, Captain Shannon Johnson said: "It's an early warning system, something the old guys taught us." Some Iraqi gunmen are wearing flak jackets, apparently looted from Iraqi police stores.

Marine commanders are now openly talking about urban warfare - a nightmare scenario for Ame r i c a n s who remember d i s a s t r o u s street-by-street fighting in Vietnam and Somalia. The Pentagon had done everything it could to plan the original war in Iraq without the need for fighting in cities.

Major General Jim Mattis, commander of the First Marine Division, said: "This is classic urban warfare. It's all the stuff World War II taught us, along with Korea, Vietnam and Somalia. People will be studying Fallujah for years to come."

He forecast that a full-scale effort to end resistance in Fallujah would come quickly. "I don't forecast that this stalemate will go on for long. It's hard to have a ceasefire when they manoeuvre against us, they fire at us," he said.

Today his prediction appeared to have substance as the Americans deployed their most feared weapon - AC-130 Spectre gunships - to rain down artillery shells on the area where their marines were surrounded.