[News] In Iraq: Marchers break through US roadblocks

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In Iraq: Marchers break through US roadblocks
April 9, 2004
<http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9231695%255E2,00.html>http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9231695%255E2,00.html



THOUSANDS of Sunni and Shiite Muslims forced their way through US military 
checkpoints Thursday to ferry food and medical supplies to the besieged 
Sunni bastion of Fallujah where US marines are trying to crush insurgents.

Troops in armoured vehicles tried to stop the convoy of cars and 
pedestrians from reaching the town located 50 kilometers west of Baghdad.

But US forces were overwhelmed as residents of villages west of the capital 
came to the convoy's assistance, hurling insults and stones at the 
beleaguered troops.

Some 20 kilometers west of Baghdad, a US patrol was attacked just moments 
before the Iraqi marchers arrived. Armed insurgents could be seen dancing 
around two blazing military vehicles.

Two US Humvees tried to stop the marchers but were forced to drive off as 
residents joined the marchers, shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greater).

US troops again blocked the highway further west, but were forced to let 
the Iraqis past as they came under a hail of stones.

Sitting on top of supply trucks, young men also hurled empty bottles of 
water and waved their shoes in sign of disdain at the US troops.

The cross-community demonstration of support for Fallujah had been 
organized by Baghdad clerics both Sunni and Shiite amid reports that the 
death toll in the town had reached 105 since late Tuesday.

The rare display of unity came after Shiite radicals launched an uprising 
in cities across central and southern Iraq, shattering a year of relative 
tolerance of the US-led occupation from the country's majority community.

In Baghdad, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the US commander of 
coalition ground forces in Iraq, faced tough questioning about the mounting 
civilian casualties in Fallujah and allegations that US marines were 
blocking delivery of humanitarian aid.

"We are not cutting off humanitarian aid to the people of Fallujah. We are 
working multiple initiatives (for aid delivery) that have to be coordinated 
with the commander of the ground," he said.

The marchers set off from the Um al-Qora mosque in west Baghdad where 
wellwishers donated food, drinks and medicine.

"No Sunnis, no Shiites, yes for Islamic unity," the marchers chanted. "We 
are Sunni and Shiite brothers and will never sell our country."

They carried portaits of Shiite radical leader Moqtada Sadr, as well as 
pictures of Sunni icon, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the 
Palestinian Hamas group who was assassinated in an Israeli air raid last 
month.

"Our families in Fallujah, remember that our dead go to heaven and theirs 
to hell," read a banner held aloft by the crowd.

Mosque imam Sheikh Ahmad Abdel Ghafur al-Samarrai said the US-led coalition 
had given the Iraqi Red Crescent permission to organize a relief convoy but 
made no secret of his hostility to the US offensive in Fallujah.

"The Iraqi Red Crescent got permission from the coalition, following 
negotiations over one day and one night to bring these supplies into the 
city," Samarrai said.

"Baghdad residents decided to send initially 90 cars with food and 
medicines to Fallujah families. We want to express solidarity with our 
brothers who are being bombed by warplanes and tanks," he told AFP.

"It is a form of jihad (holy war) which can also come in the form of 
demonstrations, donations and fighting. The people who are occupied have 
the right to fight occupation, whatever the means they use."

The Sunni cleric called on US commanders to stop the bloody offensive they 
launched in Fallujah on Tuesday after four US civilian contractors were 
killed in the town and two of their bodies mutilated.

"This only brings hatred and enmity," Samarrai said of the US assault.

"They killed the elderly praying at the mosques, as well as women and 
children. This is indiscriminate killing."

The cleric said he opposed the way the bodies of the American contractors 
had been treated but insisted that what the US marines were now doing in 
Fallujah was no better.

They "are doing the same by mutilating the residential neighborhoods," he 
said.

Agence France-Presse



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