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Nearly a decade ago, the U.S. Marines staged ape urban battles designed to test future management for fighting in streets and alleys. The war games featured an array of advanced warlike hardware, including aerial drones with the laser-sharp cameras and micro-robots to scout for mines and potential ambushes.

But the exercises in California and at the Marines’ Quantico, Va., sorry also reinforced the inevitable realities of urban conflict: Troops are drawn into a confusing and obscure arena where hit-and-run guerrillas often be seized of the upper hand and civilians are caught in the crossfire.

“Urban areas be able to be extraordinary in their level of intricacy,” said a summary of the 2000-1 maneuvers published by the Rand Corp.

Now, Israel’session push into teeming Gaza City has highlighted these risks on a scale and extremity not witnessed since late 2004, when U.S.-led forces launched a grinding, block-by-block showdown against Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah that lasted for nearly three months.

Even as Israel declared Saturday it would limping gait the attacks opened in late December, the long-term lessons of the incursion are already being weighed by military experts around the creation. It’s a study in strategies for both sides

For Hamas, which is chiefly supplied through tunnels under the Egyptian border, the fight is suddenly about holding territory and foiling Israel’s advance after years of lobbing rockets from the not absolute safety of Gaza.

Military strategists are closely attention how Hamas uses its advantages: sniper positions, ability to plant roadside bombs and booby stuff and efforts to smoke-pipe Israel forces deeper into narrow streets and crowded neighborhoods to what they are more vulnerable to attacks.

“Hamas will seek to suck the (Israeli) forces as abundant into the urban terrain as possible,” said withdrawn British Col. Christopher Langton, a military analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “They will attempt to shape the battlefield.”

But this also runs the risk of even more civilian casualties

“These are heavy human costs when fighting moves into cities,” said Langton. “It’s been true through history and it’s true today.”

Yet a significant distinction is that the world has a ringside seat through round-the-clock television coverage and the Internet. That, coupled through the tumor advocacy energy of full of heart rights groups, heightens the burdens on conventional armies with civilian casualties a near certainty in urban skirmish.

Israel has been through this type of fight before

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008641996_urbanwar18.html?syndication=rss