[News] Unusual Weapons used in Fallujah

Mon Nov 29 12:39:59 EST 2004

'UNUSUAL WEAPONS' USED IN FALLUJAH
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INTER-PRESS SERVICE
International: Iraq
November 26, 2004
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26440
Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD, Nov 26 (IPS) - The U.S. military has used poison gas and other
non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah, eyewitnesses
report..

"Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah," 35-year-old trader from
Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS. "They used everything -- tanks, artillery,
infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground."

Hammad is from the Julan district of Fallujah where some of the heaviest
fighting occurred. Other residents of that area report the use of illegal
weapons.

"They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud," Abu
Sabah, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area told IPS. "Then small
pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them."

He said pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the skin
even when water was thrown on the burns. Phosphorous weapons as well as
napalm are known to cause such effects. "People suffered so much from
these," he said.

Macabre accounts of killing of civilians are emerging through the cordon
U.S. forces are still maintaining around Fallujah.

"Doctors in Fallujah are reporting to me that there are patients in the
hospital there who were forced out by the Americans," said Mehdi Abdulla, a
33-year-old ambulance driver at a hospital in Baghdad. "Some doctors there
told me they had a major operation going, but the soldiers took the doctors
away and left the patient to die."

Kassem Mohammed Ahmed who escaped from Fallujah a little over a week ago
told IPS he witnessed many atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers in the
city.

"I watched them roll over wounded people in the street with tanks," he
said. "This happened so many times."

Abdul Razaq Ismail who escaped from Fallujah two weeks back said soldiers
had used tanks to pull bodies to the soccer stadium to be buried. "I saw
dead bodies on the ground and nobody could bury them because of the
American snipers," he said. "The Americans were dropping some of the bodies
into the Euphrates near Fallujah."

Abu Hammad said he saw people attempt to swim across the Euphrates to
escape the siege. "The Americans shot them with rifles from the shore," he
said. "Even if some of them were holding a white flag or white clothes over
their heads to show they are not fighters, they were all shot.."

Hammad said he had seen elderly women carrying white flags shot by U.S.
soldiers. "Even the wounded people were killed. The Americans made
announcements for people to come to one mosque if they wanted to leave
Fallujah, and even the people who went there carrying white flags were
killed."

Another Fallujah resident Khalil (40) told IPS he saw civilians shot as
they held up makeshift white flags. "They shot women and old men in the
streets," he said. "Then they shot anyone who tried to get their
bodies...Fallujah is suffering too much, it is almost gone now."

Refugees had moved to another kind of misery now, he said. "It's a disaster
living here at this camp," Khalil said. "We are living like dogs and the
kids do not have enough clothes."

Spokesman for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad Abdel Hamid Salim told IPS
that none of their relief teams had been allowed into Fallujah, and that
the military had said it would be at least two more weeks before any
refugees would be allowed back into the city.

"There is still heavy fighting in Fallujah," said Salim. "And the Americans
won't let us in so we can help people."

In many camps around Fallujah and throughout Baghdad, refugees are living
without enough food, clothing and shelter. Relief groups estimate there are
at least 15,000 refugee families in temporary shelters outside Fallujah.

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