Police claimed a tenuous hold over the Jamaican slum stronghold of a wanted gang leader yesterday, but only after fighting that left at least 48 people dead.
Officers and soldiers were still battling hardcore defenders of Christopher "Dudus" Coke in pockets of Kingston's Tivoli Gardens area.
And he was still at large after nearly three days of violence.
Bishop Herro Blair, Jamaica's most prominent evangelical pastor, said independent tallies put the number of civilian dead at 44 in West Kingston alone. At least four soldiers and police officers also have died.
The country's embattled Prime Minister Bruce Golding promised an independent investigation into all civilian deaths during the operation.
Bishop Blair and Jamaica's public defender were escorted by security forces into Tivoli Gardens, where supporters of Coke began massing last week after Golding dropped his nine-month refusal to extradite him to the US. Coke has ties to Mr Golding's Labour Party, which gets a large number of votes from the Tivoli Gardens area where he is MP.
Yesterday he indicated he was taken aback by the intensity of the assault.
"The government deeply regrets the loss of lives, especially those of members of the security forces and innocent, law-abiding citizens caught in the crossfire. The security forces were directed to take all practical steps to avoid casualties as much as possible," he said.
He vowed that the "most thorough investigations" would examine all deaths caused by security forces, which have a reputation for slipshod investigations and for being too quick on the trigger. He also said security agents would go after "criminal gunmen in whatever community they may be ensconced."
Government officials told reporters all the dead civilians in West Kingston were men. But people inside the slums told local radio stations there had been indiscriminate shootings during the assault that police and soldiers launched on Monday.
The gunmen fighting for Coke say he provides services and protection to the poor West Kingston community - all funded by a criminal empire that seemed untouchable until the US demanded his extradition.
Coke has built a loyal following and turned the district into his stronghold. The US says he has been trafficking cocaine to the streets of New York since the mid-1990s, allegedly hiring island women to hide the drugs on themselves on flights to America.
Mr Golding had delayed the US extradition request for nine months, straining relations. A US State Department report earlier this year questioned Jamaica's reliability as an ally in the war against drugs, and Mr Golding's stance drew domestic opposition that threatened his political career.
The government imposed a month-long state of emergency for the tense Kingston area on Sunday, after an eruption of violence by gangsters that security forces called unprovoked.