Even if the denial of fires occurred as the reporter claims, I wonder if he has his facts right as to the cause (new rules to avoid civilian casualties). Generally speaking, restrictions on the use of artillery are nothing new. Even in early deployments to Iraq, we needed BDE-commander approval for any fire mission of artillery into the city that we operated in, or the immediate vicinity (battalion commander approval for mortars). I generally cringe when weapons organic/OPCON to battalion are controlled by BDE, but in that case I think it made sense. Certain fires need restrictions.

Whatever the case, the quoted passage is a bit odd. I just read the full article (a very short article, considering the length of the firefight) and the reporter notes that the Captain requested artillery or attack aviation and the response was that no helicopters were available. Later, a specific request for artillery was a smoke mission, not HE. They did not get smoke, but they did get WP. Firing WP doesn't seem like something you do if you are worried about civilian casualties.

The report is very light on details.