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During the first four years of the U.S. presence in Iraq, the city of Fallujah remained mired in almost continuous violence. Most famously, it was the site of the two iconic battles by U.S. forces to retake the city from insurgent forces in 2004 and was the home to numerous insurgent groups operating just west of Baghdad. While U.S. and Iraqi forces successfully retook the city, they struggled to set the conditions for Iraqi government control as they continued to wage a low-intensity warfare campaign against insurgents. However, in 2007, as the Anbar Awakening began to turn the province and the city against al Qaeda and U.S. forces began to apply a counter-insurgency approach to the war in Iraq with additional surge forces, the city finally turned against the insurgency and was largely pacified.