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Jan 14, 2025 | 
mwi.westpoint.edu | John Spencer |Liam Collins |Jayson Geroux
In 2008, a surge in violence from an Iraqi militia called the Jaysh al-Mahdi—better known to coalition forces as JAM—broke out in Baghdad. It was, in part, a response to an Iraqi military offensive against the group’s fighters in the southern city of Basra. For months, attacks with improvised explosive devices and other weapons had dropped precipitously in the Iraqi capital.
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Nov 7, 2024 | 
mwi.westpoint.edu | John Spencer |Jayson Geroux |Liam Collins
Twenty years ago today, on the evening of November 7, 2004, a small task force entered the city of Fallujah. Composed of a US Marine reconnaissance company, a Marine infantry company, a US Army mechanized infantry company, and an Iraqi commando battalion, the task force quickly secured a hospital and two nearby bridges spanning the Euphrates River.
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Oct 3, 2024 | 
mwi.westpoint.edu | Liam Collins |Jayson Geroux |John Spencer
Thirty-one years ago today, at 3:32 PM local time, an assault force boarded helicopters and left an airfield near the Indian Ocean coast in Mogadishu, Somalia. A ground convoy departed the at the same time. The US special operations forces, part of Task Force Ranger, expected to be back within sixty minutes.
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Oct 3, 2024 | 
mwi.westpoint.edu | Liam Collins |Jayson Geroux |John Spencer
Liam Collins, Jayson Geroux, and John Spencer | 10.03.24The Battle of Mogadishu occurred on October 3–4, 1993. Mogadishu is the capital of Somalia, sitting along the coast of the Indian Ocean, and at the time of the battle it had been ravaged by two years of civil war. White-towered mosques were still standing but other buildings and walls were heaps of rubble or pockmarked with bullet holes.
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May 23, 2024 | 
mwi.westpoint.edu | John Spencer |Jayson Geroux |Liam Collins
John Spencer, Jayson Geroux, and Liam Collins | 07.25.23The Battle of Marawi occurred from May 23 to October 23, 2017. Marawi is the capital city of Lanao del Sur province on the island of Mindanao, the Philippines’ second-largest island. The city is located on the island’s interior. To its south is the 340-square-kilometer Lake Lanao. It is otherwise surrounded by mountains and jungle, with Mount Mupo to its north and Moncado Hill to its east.
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May 23, 2024 | 
mwi.westpoint.edu | John Spencer |Jayson Geroux |Liam Collins
Seven years ago today, at 2:18 pm local time, soldiers of the Philippine Army’s 4th Light Reaction Company approached a house on the western side of the city of Marawi. Intelligence indicated that inside the house were two leaders of the Islamic State in the Philippines—an Islamist group that had been formed in 2016 with the merger of several other militant organizations. Hastily planned and executed, the raid triggered a firefight that lasted through the night and into the following day.
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May 7, 2024 | 
mwi.westpoint.edu | John Spencer |Jayson Geroux
Any future war against a peer or near-peer enemy will contain some measure of urban combat. A broad base of historical, demographic, sociopolitical, and military analysis makes that fact abundantly clear. As a result, militaries must be required to conduct both urban offense and defense operations. Military theorists have long described the defense as the strongest form of war, and current doctrine agrees.
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Apr 12, 2024 | 
mwi.westpoint.edu | Jayson Geroux
In this episode of the Urban Warfare Project Podcast, guest host Jayson Geroux is joined by retired Lieutenant Colonel Louis DiMarco. Dr. DiMarco is a professor of military history at the United States Army Command and Staff College and specializes in urban warfare history. He is also the author of the influential 2012 book Concrete Hell: Urban Warfare from Stalingrad to Iraq.
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Jul 25, 2023 | 
mwi.westpoint.edu | John Spencer |Jayson Geroux |Liam Collins
On the evening of November 7, 2004, a small task force entered the city of Fallujah. Composed of a US Marine reconnaissance company, a Marine infantry company, a US Army mechanized infantry company, and an Iraqi commando battalion, the task force quickly secured a hospital and two nearby bridges spanning the Euphrates River.
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Jul 25, 2023 | 
mwi.westpoint.edu | John Spencer |Jayson Geroux |Liam Collins
John Spencer, Jayson Geroux, and Liam Collins | 07.25.23The Second Battle of Fallujah occurred from November 7to December 23, 2004 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. As noted in Urban Warfare Case Study #6 on the First Battle of Fallujah, which took place earlier in 2004, the city is situated on the Euphrates River in Iraq’s al-Anbar province, seventy kilometers west of Baghdad.
