Battle of Samarra (2004)

Battle of Samara
	Part of the Iraq War
	; Smoke rises from near the Golden Mosque during the battle of Samarra, 1 October 2004.
Date	1–3 October 2004
Location	Samarra, Iraq
Result	Coalition victory
Belligerents
Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad; Ba'ath Party loyalists	United States; Iraq
Commanders and leaders
Haitham Shaker Badri	Adnan Thabit
Units involved
Unknown	1st Infantry Division 2nd Brigade CT; 25th Infantry Division 2nd Brigade CT; 7th Iraqi Army Battalion; 202nd Iraqi National Guard Battalion; Iraqi 36th Commando Battalion
Strength
500–1,000 insurgents	3,000 troops; 2,000 security forces
Casualties and losses
127 killed; 60 wounded; 128 captured	1 killed ; 4 killed
	20 civilians killed; 61 civilians wounded

The Battle of Samarra, also called Operation Baton Rouge, took place in 2004 during the Iraq War. The city of Samarra in central Iraq had fallen under the control of insurgents shortly after insurgents had seized control of Fallujah and Ramadi. In preparation for an offensive to retake Fallujah, on 1 October, 5,000 American and Iraqi troops assaulted Samarra and secured the city after three days of fighting.