Falluja Liberated, Says Marines Commander
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday November 16, 2004
United States and Iraqi security forces scoured Falluja for remaining resistance fighters and pounded the southern neighbourhoods of the city with heavy artillery and bombs late into Sunday night, as military commanders declared victory seven days after launching the largest military operation since the invasion last year.
"The city has been seized," said Lieutenant-General John Sattler, the commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. "We have liberated the city of Falluja." But as US forces struggled to subdue the remaining resistance in Falluja yesterday, military chiefs turned down pleas from aid organisations to take relief to civilians inside the city.They attacked suspected resistance targets with air strikes, artillery and mortar rounds, a Reuters correspondent in the city reported. The US authorities said they had targeted a fortified underground bunker with reinforced tunnels leading to stores of weapons, including an anti-aircraft artillery gun. The tunnels connected a ring of facilities filled with weapons, an anti-aircraft artillery gun, bunk beds, a truck and a suspected weapons cache," military officials said in a statement. Relief agencies have been trying to get food, water and medicine to hundreds of families they say were trapped inside Falluja during the offensive. The Red Crescent believes at least 150 families are trapped, with many people in desperate need of food, blankets, water and medicine. The interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, has said he does not believe any civilians were killed in the offensive. But a member of an Iraqi relief committee told Al-Jazeera television he saw 22 bodies buried in rubble of one street in the city's northern Jolan district. "Of the 22 bodies, five were found in one house, as well as two children whose ages did not exceed 15, and a man with an artificial leg," Mohammed Farhan Awad said. "Some of the bodies we found had been eaten by stray dogs and cats. It was a very painful sight." Some residents still inside the city said their children were suffering from diarrhoea and had not eaten for days. Asked what he would do about the families and other non-combatants in the city, a US marines colonel, Mike Shupp, said: "I haven't heard that myself, and the Iraqi soldiers didn't tell me about that. We want to help them as much as we can. "We are on the radio telling them how to come out and how to come up to coalition forces."He said casualties could now be brought out over the reopened bridge and treated at Falluja hospital. He denied he had heard of civilians trapped in the city. "There is no need to bring [Red Crescent] supplies in because we have supplies of our own for the people." Seven Red Crescent trucks and ambulances have reached the main hospital on the western outskirts of the city, but it is still too dangerous for them to cross the Euphrates River to bring help to locals, including hundreds of children, cut off for six days. Thousands of refugees are living in makeshift accommodation at camps outside the city, or with relatives. Red Crescent officials trying to get aid to them said they would wait in Falluja hospital until they could go in. "We will wait for permission and we will stay here tonight," said the Red Crescent secretary-general, Jamal al-Karbouli, the leader of the convoy. Mohammed Ali Shalal, 65, a truck driver who fled on Friday, said: "It was terrible. We had no water or electricity. I even saw dead bodies lying in the street and a tank rolled over them. We ate dry bread and drank dirty water. I can't believe I'm safe and speaking to you now." US military officials said 38 US troops were killed and 275 wounded in the battle to capture Falluja. They have said that 1200 to 1600 resistance fighters - about half the total thought to have been entrenched in Falluja before the battle - have been killed and 450 to 550 captured. There is no figure for civilian casualties, but residents say many people have died. Reuters, The GuardianLATEST DEVELOPMENTS* Iraq's deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, has said that elections due in January could be derailed by the resistance.* A US officer was charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder for his role in the shooting death of a wounded Iraqi in a Baghdad slum. Second Lieutenant Erick Anderson of the 41st Infantry Regiment has been charged with premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder. * An Islamic group has freed two women relatives of the interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, but is still holding his male cousin, Arab satellite television stations said on Sunday. In Falluja US forces said they found an Iraqi hostage chained to a wall in front of a video camera. They had also found a Syrian who was the driver for two French journalists missing since August. * US forces recaptured a police station in Mosul after it was attacked by resistance fighters.
© 2004 Sydney Morning Herald