Combat· Iraq War (Op IRAQI FREEDOM)
Building 6 in New Ubaydi
The fight for Building 6 in New Ubaydi was one of the sharp close-quarters actions of the Al Qaim campaign in the western Euphrates valley, when Marines clearing the town encountered insurgents fortified within a building who fought from prepared positions at point-blank range.
The engagement became a deadly room-by-room struggle, the Marines taking casualties as they fought to clear the structure against defenders dug in and waiting. Such fights typified the lethal danger of clearing the river towns of Anbar, where any building might conceal a fortified killing zone, much as the Marines had found in Fallujah. The action at New Ubaydi was one of the costly small-unit engagements within the broader campaign to secure the Al Qaim district. It became one of the remembered actions of the western Euphrates fighting, a stark example of the close, dangerous urban combat that marked the effort to clear the insurgent strongholds along the border.
Record no. 774