The region has been inhabited for many millennia. There is evidence that the area surrounding Fallujah was inhabited in
Babylonian times. The current name of the city is thought to come from its
Syriac name,
Pallgutha, which is derived from the word
division or "canal regulator" since it was the location where the water of the Euphrates River divided into a canal. Classical authors cited the name as "Pallacottas". The name in
Aramaic is
Pumbedita.
Early history and middle ages The region of Fallujah lies near the ancient
Sassanid Persian town of
Anbar, in the Sassanid province of
Asōristān. The word
anbar is
Persian and means "warehouse". It was known as
Firuz Shapur or
Perisapora during the
Sassanian Era. There are extensive ruins north of Fallujah which are identified with the town of Anbar. Anbar was located at the confluence of the Euphrates River with the King's Canal, today the Saqlawiyah Canal, known in early Islamic times as the
Nahr Isa and in ancient times as the Nahr Malka. Subsequent shifts in the Euphrates River channel have caused it to follow the course of the ancient Pallacottas canal. The town at this site in Jewish sources was known as
Nehardea and was the primary center of
Babylonian Jewry until its destruction by the
Palmyran ruler
Odenathus in 259. The Medieval Jewish traveller
Benjamin of Tudela in 1164 visited "el-Anbar which is
Pumbeditha in
Nehardea" and said it had 3,000 Jews living there. The region played host for several centuries to one of the most important
Jewish academies, the
Pumbedita Academy in the city of
Pumbedita, which from 258 to 1038 along with
Sura (
ar-Hira) was one of the two most important centers of Jewish learning worldwide., ca. 1914|left|242x242pxUnder the
Ottoman Empire, Fallujah was a minor stop on one of the country's main roads across the desert west from
Baghdad.
Modern era: 1900–2003 In the spring of 1920, the British, who had gained control of Iraq after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, sent Lieut.-Colonel
Gerard Leachman, a renowned explorer and a senior colonial officer, to meet with local leader Shaykh Dhari, perhaps to forgive a loan given to the sheikh. During the brief
Anglo-Iraqi War of 1941, the Iraqi Army was defeated by the British in a battle near Fallujah. In 1947 the town had only about 10,000 inhabitants. It grew rapidly into a city after Iraqi independence with the influx of
oil wealth into the country. Its position on one of the main roads out of Baghdad made it of central importance. Under
Saddam Hussein, who ruled Iraq from 1979 to 2003, Fallujah came to be an important area of support for the regime, along with the rest of the region labeled by the US military as the "
Sunni Triangle". During the
Gulf War,
Coalition warplanes repeatedly attacked a bridge in Fallujah which was used as part of an
Iraqi military supply line. On 14 February 1991, a
Royal Air Force (RAF) fighter jet fired two
laser-guided missiles which were aimed at the bridge but malfunctioned and instead struck Fallujah's largest marketplace (which was situated in a residential area), killing between 50 and 150 non-combatants and wounding many more. After news of the mistake became public, an RAF spokesman,
Group Captain David Henderson, issued a statement noting that the missile had malfunctioned but admitted that the Royal Air Force had made an error. Coalition warplanes subsequently launched another attack on the bridge, with one missile hitting its target while two others fell into the river and a fourth struck another marketplace in Fallujah, due to its laser guidance system once again malfunctioning.
Iraq War (2003–2011) Fallujah was one of the least affected areas of Iraq immediately after the
2003 invasion by the US-led Coalition. Iraqi Army units stationed in the area abandoned their positions and disappeared into the local population, leaving unsecured military equipment behind. Fallujah was also the site of a Ba'athist resort facility called "
Dreamland", located a few kilometers outside the city proper. The damage the city had avoided during the initial invasion was negated by damage from looters, who took advantage of the collapse of
Saddam Hussein's government. The looters targeted former government sites, the Dreamland compound, and the nearby military bases. Aggravating this situation was the proximity of Fallujah to the infamous
Abu Ghraib prison, from which Saddam, in one of his last acts, had released all prisoners. When the US Army entered the town in April 2003, they positioned themselves at the vacated Ba'ath Party headquarters. A Fallujah Protection Force composed of local Iraqis was set up by the US-led occupants to help fight the rising resistance. On the evening of 28 April 2003, a crowd of about two hundred people defied a curfew imposed by the Americans and gathered outside a secondary school used as a military HQ to demand its reopening. Soldiers from the
82nd Airborne stationed on the roof of the building fired on the crowd,
killing 17 civilians and wounding over 70. American forces claim they were responding to gunfire from the crowd, while Iraqi witnesses deny this version.
Human Rights Watch also disputed the American claims and said that the evidence suggested the US troops fired indiscriminately and used disproportionate force. On 31 March 2004,
Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah
ambushed a convoy containing four American
private military contractors from
Blackwater USA, who were conducting delivery for food caterers
ESS. The four, armed contractors,
Scott Helvenston, Jerry (Jerko) Zovko, Wesley Batalona, and Michael Teague, were dragged from their cars, beaten, and set on fire. Their charred corpses were then dragged through the streets before being hung from a bridge spanning the
Euphrates River. This bridge is unofficially referred to as "Blackwater Bridge" by
Coalition Forces operating there. Photographs of the event were released to
news agencies worldwide, causing outrage in the United States, and prompting the announcement of a campaign to reestablish American control over the city. Chesnot and Malbrunot were released by their captors, the
Islamic Army in Iraq, on 21 December 2004. The U.S. military first denied that it has used
white phosphorus as an anti-personnel weapon in Fallujah, but later retracted that denial, and admitted to using the incendiary in the city as an offensive weapon. According to
George Monbiot, reports following the events of November 2004 have alleged
war crimes, human rights abuses, and a massacre by U.S. personnel. Residents were allowed to return to the city in mid-December 2004 after undergoing
biometric identification, provided they wear their ID cards all the time. US officials report that "more than half of Fallujah's 39,000 homes were damaged during
Operation Phantom Fury, and about ten thousand of those were destroyed" while compensation amounts to twenty percent of the value of damaged houses, with an estimated 32,000 homeowners eligible, according to Marine Lt Col William Brown. According to NBC, 9,000 homes were destroyed, thousands more were damaged and of the 32,000 compensation claims only 2,500 have been paid as of 14 April 2005. According to Mike Marqusee of
Iraq Occupation Focus writing in the
Guardian, "Fallujah's compensation commissioner has reported that 36,000 of the city's 50,000 homes were destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65 mosques and shrines". Reconstruction mainly consists of clearing rubble from heavily damaged areas and reestablishing basic utility services. 10% of the pre-offensive inhabitants had returned as of mid-January 2005, and 30% as of the end of March 2005. In 2006, some reports say two-thirds have now returned and only 15 percent remain displaced on the outskirts of the city. Pre-offensive inhabitant figures are unreliable; the nominal population was assumed to have been 250,000–350,000. Thus, over 150,000 individuals are still living as
IDPs in tent cities or with relatives outside Fallujah or elsewhere in Iraq. Current estimates by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and Coalition Forces put the city's population at over 350,000, possibly closing in on half a million. In the aftermath of the offensive, relative calm was restored to Fallujah although almost-daily attacks against coalition forces resumed in 2005 as the population slowly trickled back into the city. From 2005–06, elements of the New Iraqi Army's 2nd and 4th brigades, 1st Division, occupied the city while the Marines maintained a small complex consisting of a security element from
RCT8 and a
CMOC at the city hall. The Iraqi units were aided by
Military Transition Teams. Most Marine elements stayed outside of the city limits. In December 2006, enough control had been exerted over the city to transfer operational control of the city from American forces to the 1st Iraqi Army Division. In June 2007,
Regimental Combat Team 6 began
Operation Alljah, a security plan modeled on a successful operation in
Ramadi. On a broadcast of
National Public Radio's
All Things Considered, Middle East analyst
Kirk Sowell stated that while ISIS was occupying parts of the city, most of the ground lost was to the tribal militias who are opposed to both the
Iraqi government and al-Qaeda. More than 100 people were killed as Iraqi police and tribesmen battled militants who took over parts of two cities on Anbar province. On the same day, the
Iraqi Army shelled the city of Fallujah with mortars to try to wrest back control from Sunni Muslim militants and tribesmen, killing at least eight people, tribal leaders and officials said. Medical sources in Fallujah said another 30 people were wounded in shelling by the army. Despite various reports stating that ISIS was behind the unrest,
The Christian Science Monitor journalist Dan Murphy disputed this allegation and claimed that while ISIS fighters have maintained a presence in the city, various tribal militias who sympathized with the ideas of nationalism and were opposed to both the Iraqi government and the ISIS controlled the largest share of area in Fallujah. A report from Al Arabiya also backed this claim and alleged that the relationship between the tribesmen and the ISIS militants was only logistical. On 14 January, various tribal chieftains in the province acknowledged "revolutionary tribesmen" were behind the uprising in Fallujah and other parts of Anbar and announced they would support them unless Maliki agreed to cease the ongoing military crackdowns on tribesmen. Speaking on condition of anonymity at the end of May 2014, an
Anbar-based Iraqi government security officer told
Human Rights Watch that ISIS controlled several neighborhoods of southeast Fallujah as well as several northern and southern satellite communities, while local militias loyal to the
Anbar Military Council controlled the central and northern neighborhoods of the city; however, Human Rights Watch stated that they could not confirm these claims. Despite the discussion over which groups initially controlled the city, Fallujah was mostly referred to as under ISIL/ISIS control during the occupation. After beginning a
campaign to liberate Anbar Governorate from ISIL in July 2015, in February 2016, the Iraqi army and its allies started to encircle the city in the
Siege of Fallujah. On 22 May 2016,
Operation Breaking Terrorism was launched to recapture Fallujah, marking the beginning of the
Battle of Fallujah. On 22 May 2016, the Iraqi Army notified the remaining Fallujah residents of its plans to retake the city, and that such residents should either evacuate, or if not possible, to minimally raise a
white flag over their roofs. Over the next several days, the army
made advances on the city, capturing several surrounding villages on the outskirts on the town, killing a total of ~270 ISIL fighters, at least 35 members of Iraqi forces, ~40 civilians, and 1
Basij member, as of 1 June 2016. On 30 May 2016, the military began to enter the city of Fallujah itself, but began to be stalled on 1 June, trying to attack ISIL members, but keeping the tens of thousands of civilians still trapped inside the city safe. However, by 3 June they began to make further advances on the city, killing 62 more ISIL militants. On 26 June, the Iraqi army reported that it had fully liberated the city, while fighting was ongoing in some pockets northwest of Fallujah which remained under ISIL control. ==Geography==