6:30 a.m.: Echo, Fox and Golf companies from the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines infiltrate the southern portion of Husayba.

Units from the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines move into the northern half of the city.

In the first hours of the operation, Marines and Iraqi soldiers are attacked by insurgents, firefights that only intensify as troops work their way into the center of the city.

Once in the center of Husayba, the US-led troops are engaged in a 20-minute firefight, where insurgents fire at the incoming forces from their position inside a mosque.

In the southwestern section of the city, the fiercest firefight of the day breaks out. Machine gun fire, tank rounds and AK-47 bullets sear the air during violent, street-by-street combat between al Qaeda and Coalition troops.

Marines clearing a house encounter a locked door. When one soldier attempts to break it down, a terrorist shoots from the other side of the door, killing the Marine. The shooter runs up to the roof and takes a sniping position. In a matter of minutes, Marines kill the terrorist from the streets below.

Insurgents armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenade launchers continue to resist, darting along the city's narrow dirt streets and firing from sniping positions on rooftops and upper-level windows.

Marines respond with ferocious torrents of automatic weapons fire and tank rounds on the streets, and from homes, schools and mosques.

For no fewer than 10 of the toughest targets, soldiers call for air strikes.

Fighting is markedly light until sundown, when Marines suffer an onslaught of small-arms fire. US-led troops respond by taking positions on rooftops and inside amphibious assault vehicles in the streets. They launch a punishing counter-attack using rifle and machine gun fire, and tank cannons.

In the final hours of Operation Steel Curtain, at least three Marines are killed, and 60-80 al Qaeda terrorists are accounted for among the dead.