The largest city in the province was the provincial capital, Ramadi. Ramadi was a relatively new city in the region, established by the Ottoman Turks in 1869 to control the Iraqi Dulaim tribe. The city and its major suburbs were relatively large, about 15km (11 miles) east to west and 12km (9 miles) north to south. It had a population of between 400,000 and 450,000 at the time of the battle (it was about four times the size of Fallujah). The bulk of the city’s population remained in the city throughout the fighting. The city was divided into a dense central city area and numerous suburban residential areas. The central city was bounded on the north by the Euphrates River, on the west by the Habbaniyah Canal, on the south by the railway line, and on the east by suburbs. Major suburbs, in addition to those to the east of the city, were also located west and northwest of the Habbaniyah Canal, and north of the Euphrates River. Two main bridges connected the central city with the suburbs: one crossing the Euphrates River to the northern suburbs; and one crossing the Habbaniyah Canal to the western suburbs. In addition, a major highway bridge crossed the Euphrates north of the city and connected the western and northern suburbs. The suburbs themselves were mainly residential areas, and they were divided into distinct districts, each aligned with a particular tribal group.
Before the US invasion of Iraq the city of Ramadi was a fairly modern Iraqi city. Because of its relatively recent history, Ramadi did not have a casbah as found in traditional old cities of the region. Buildings were predominantly built of concrete and in the central part of the city, they were very modern. The city’s hospital had been built by a Japanese company in 1986 and at seven stories tall was the tallest building in the city. There were several five- and six-story tall buildings in the downtown area. Most of the buildings in the city and in the suburbs were traditional flat-roofed two- and three-story cement buildings. By the time the 1BCT arrived at the city, considerable fighting had occurred in the years since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The central part of the city had been subjected to numerous artillery and air attacks, and improvised explosive device (IED) explosions were a regular occurrence on all of the city’s main streets. For example, the city hospital had been regularly attacked by US Army multiple-launched rocket systems (MLRS). There was significant damage to the city center, many buildings were destroyed, and many more were damaged and uninhabitable. There were few undamaged buildings.
The roads of Ramadi were paved, but over the years debris, dirt, and garbage had accumulated on top of the paving. When the 1BCT arrived in the city they were covered with inches of grime. In addition, most of the city’s infrastructure no longer existed. There was no power in the city, there was no garbage removal, many areas did not have running water, there was no telephone service (including no cell-phone service), and no operating newspapers. There was also no mayor or city council. The police force of the city consisted of 100 policemen, who never left their stations and often did not report for work. Essentially there was no functioning government.
The area of operations (AO) assigned to the 1BCT, AO Topeka, was slightly larger than the city and included another 150,000 civilians in addition to the population of Ramadi itself. This rural population was scattered among numerous small villages on the north and south banks of the Euphrates River. The vast majority of the people in and around Ramadi were from the Dulaim tribe confederation. The Dulaim, its subordinate sub-tribes and clans, made up 10–20 percent of the Iraqi army and were particularly prominent in the elite Republican Guard units. There were over a thousand clans within the Dulaim, and the tribes’ membership extended over the international borders into Syria and Jordan. Each tribe within the Dulaim confederation was headed by a sheik. The sheiks were secular leaders, usually selected by the tribal elders through a process that was unstructured, but based on heredity, competence, and democracy. The sheik’s responsibility, in return for the loyalty of the tribe, was to ensure the security and well-being of the tribe, while also administering tribal justice. Seniority among sheiks was based on tribal wealth, measured in actual wealth, political influence, and the size of the tribe. Dozens of sheiks oversaw the tribes living in Ramadi and the surrounding area. Many of the most important sheiks oversaw their tribes from self-imposed exile — for reasons of safety — in places like Jordan.
In Al-Anbar Province the US forces and the security forces of the new government of Iraq (GOI) faced at least three diferent types of opponents. The frst was Al Qaeda of Iraq (AQI), which was the most dangerous and ideological of the groups. The second were the Sunni nationalists who had been favored under Saddam Hussein and who had lost political power with the invasion. Finally, there was an unorganized criminal element that was bent on profiting from the general violence and lawlessness. The prime objective of coalition forces in 2006 was AQI, and those Sunni nationalist groups and criminal elements that supported AQI.
Al Qaeda in Iraq was organized in 2003 as part of the reaction to the US invasion. It was nominally a division of the larger Islamist Al Qaeda organization led by Osama Bin Laden and based in Pakistan. The leader of AQI was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was a Jordanian. The size of the organization was unknown, but estimates ranged from 800 to several thousand fighters. Many of the group’s members were foreigners who infiltrated into Iraq from Syria, but it also contained many radical Iraqi Islamists. Its leadership, however, was dominated by non-Iraqis. The goals of AQI were to force the US forces to leave Iraq, defeat the Iraqi security forces, overthrow the Iraqi government, and establish an Iraqi Islamist state. In October 2006, in the midst of the battle for Ramadi, AQI declared the Islamic State of Iraq with Ramadi as its capital. AQI employed a variety of hit-and-run guerrilla tactics against coalition forces, but uniquely favored the vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), and the suicide bomber.
The other major group of insurgents were the Sunni nationalists. These fighters’ loyalties were first to their sheiks and tribe, and second to the former Ba’athist government of Iraq. Many of them had had high rank and extensive military experience in the former Iraqi army or in other aspects of Saddam Hussein’s intelligence and security apparatus. They considered themselves legitimate resisters of the foreign occupation and the Shi’ite-led Iraqi government. Through their tribal affiliations they had widespread popular support.
Both the Islamists and the nationalists were supported by criminals who hired out their services for pay. These criminals typically operated in small independent groups and were willing to snipe, emplace IEDs, and even attack Coalition Forces (CF) positions for predetermined payments. Bonuses were paid to these groups for the success of their operations and often they were required to show video evidence in order to be paid. In the first years of the Iraqi insurgency, 2003–05, the two major factions of the insurgency, Islamists and nationalists, worked together against the Coalition Forces. However, in areas where they had dominance, the Islamists, primarily AQI, began to enforce strict Sharia law. They arbitrarily killed or mutilated violators of strict Islamic law, and also began to demand both material and monetary support from the local populations. Anyone who protested against, or resisted, AQI demands was summarily executed. By the end of 2005 the nationalist Sunni resistance leaders realized that AQI were potentially a larger threat than CF. However, it was difficult for the nationalists to resist AQI’s dominance because the nationalist sheiks were not unified, and AQI used highly visible executions to intimidate large portions of the population.