The Battle for Ramadi: The Fierce Fight Against al-Qaeda’s Grip on Iraq’s Deadliest Battlefield
Introduction Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar Province, became a central battleground in the Iraq War, second in notoriety only to Fallujah. Located just 68 miles west of Baghdad, Ramadi fell under al-Qaeda’s near-total control in the mid-2000s, making it a stronghold for insurgent forces. For U.S. Marines and other coalition forces, the task of…