“The Marines went back into Fallujah [Iraq] on November 7, 2004. By now it was controlled by thousands of jihadist insurgents. …they fought block to block, largely pacifying the city within a couple of weeks. But retaking Fallujah came at a tremendous cost; thousands of the city’s buildings were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants fled, including [al Qaeda in Iraq leader] Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other members of al-Qaeda. Thirty-five U.S. troops had died.”
– Peter Bergen, The Longest War, Page 165