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<h1><b>US 'pacifies' city but rebels take violence to rest of
country</b></h1><font size=3><a href="http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=581298&host=3&dir=75" eudora="autourl">http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=581298&host=3&dir=75<br>
</a></font><h3><b>By Kim Sengupta in Camp Dogwood<br><br>
<br>
</b></h3><h4><b>10 November
2004</b></h4><font size=3><a href="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=581298">US
'pacifies' city but rebels take violence to rest of country</a>
<br><br>
<br><br>
US forces reached the centre of Fallujah yesterday after hours of street
fighting and barrages from artillery, tank and helicopter gunships. As
night fell, the Americans announced that they had captured key strategic
targets and were carrying out house-to-house searches.<br><br>
The Pentagon said that at least 10 US and two Iraqi soldiers had died
since the offensive began on Monday night. Reports of insurgents' deaths
vary between 12 and 42. Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi interim Prime Minister,
claimed that troops had detained 38 insurgents entrenched at the
hospital. <br><br>
Even as US commanders were declaring that the rebel stronghold would be
"pacified" very soon, the price being paid for the victory was
becoming evident in the carnage being visited around the country. It
appears that </font><font size=3 color="#FF0000">many of the insurgents
who had been based in Fallujah slipped out of the city and moved to other
parts of Iraq</font><font size=3> before the offensive. <br><br>
The estimates given by the US military about the numbers of insurgents in
Fallujah have varied. Two weeks ago it was claimed there were 6,000
heavily armed militants, including the Jordanian terrorist, Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, in the city. However,
</font><font size=3 color="#FF0000">small groups of fighters, sometimes
no more than 20 strong, have attempted to engage the Americans, who
vastly outnumber and outgun them, before fading away. <br><br>
</font><font size=3>The explanation of what had happened to those missing
fighters could be found, perhaps, in what happened elsewhere in Iraq
yesterday. <br><br>
Hundreds of armed men entered Ramadi, taking over government buildings,
while in Baquba, north of Baghdad, 45 people, including 25 policemen were
killed in a series of attacks. Eleven people died in bombings in Baghdad,
and an attack on a National Guard headquarters in Kirkuk killed three
people. <br><br>
There was also political unravelling, with
</font><font size=3 color="#FF0000">one of the main Sunni groups, the
Iraqi Islamic Party, resigning from the Iraqi government in protest at
the assault.</font><font size=3> "The American attack on our people
in Fallujah has led and will lead to more killings and genocide without
mercy from the Americans," said its leader, Mohsen Abdel Hamid. The
</font><font size=3 color="#FF0000">Association of Muslim Scholars, an
influential group of Sunni clerics, called for a boycott of next
January's planned elections which were, it said, being held "over
the corpses of those killed in Fallujah and the blood of the
wounded". <br><br>
</font><font size=3>There were reports from Fallujah that almost
</font><font size=3 color="#FF0000">500 Iraqi government troops almost
a battalion had refused to fight alongside the
Americans</font><font size=3>, a repetition of similar incidents when US
forces attacked the city last April. In Washington, Donald Rumsfeld, the
US Defence Secretary, said: "I would characterise it as an isolated
problem." <br><br>
The government imposed an indefinite night-time curfew in Baghdad.
Officials said there was "credible evidence" that militants
escaping from Fallujah had regrouped in the capital and were planning
more attacks. <br><br>
Colonel Michael Formica, the commander of the 1st Cavalry Brigade, said
in Fallujah that escaping fighters were a real problem. "My concern
now is only one not to allow any enemy to escape. As we tighten the
noose around him, he will move to escape to fight another day. I do not
want these guys to get out of here. I want them killed or captured as
they flee". <br><br>
Intermittent fighting was under way in the northern sectors of Fallujah,
with at least two American tanks reported to be engulfed in flames.
Despite meeting fierce and, at times, sustained resistance, senior
officers of the army's Task Force, of the 1st Infantry Division, said
they had not encountered any of the more than 120 "suicide
cars" supposedly waiting for them packed with explosives. However,
other units reported that they had found booby-trapped buildings.
<br><br>
By midday, US armoured units, attacking from the north, had made their
way to the highway running from east to west through the city centre and
crossed over into the southern part of the city. One of the objectives
surrounded by US forces was the al-Hidra mosque half a mile inside the
city. According to the American commanders, the mosque was being used as
an a weapons dump and planning centre for militants, and will be captured
in due course with Iraqi government troops leading the way. <br><br>
US troops are using Fallujah's main railway station as a forward base and
detention centre. Iraqi government troops brought in nine handcuffed
prisoners from the Jolan area, where many of the militants are said to
have gathered. They said two were Egyptians and one was Syrian.
<br><br>
Captain Robert Bodisch, a Marines tank company commander, said:
"They are putting up a strong fight ... these people are hardcore
... A man pulled out from behind a wall and fired an RPG
[rocket-propelled grenade] at my tank. I have to get another tank to go
back in there." <br><br>
Local people claimed US warplanes bombed a clinic, causing many
casualties. The main hospital was captured by US and Iraqi government
forces on Monday, when, according to government figures, more than 40
"terrorists" were killed. <br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#FF0000"><b><i>Three members of Iraq PM's
family kidnapped<br>
AP<br><br>
</i></b></font><font size=3>10 November 2004 <br><br>
Three members of the Iraqi prime minister's family were abducted from
their Baghdad home, police said today.<br><br>
Lt. Col. Maan Khalaf said gunmen kidnapped three relatives of Ayad Allawi
from their home in the western Qadisiyah neighborhood yesterday
evening.<br><br>
The missing include Allawi's cousin, his cousin's wife and his cousin's
daughter-in-law, he said.<br><br>
Hundreds of Iraqis have been kidnapped in recent months, mainly by groups
demanding ransom payments.<br><br>
More than 170 foreigners have been kidnapped by insurgents in Iraq since
Saddam Hussein's regime fell in April 2003. More than 30 foreign hostages
have been killed. Many of the kidnappers pursue political motives such as
the withdrawal of foreign companies and troops from Iraq. <br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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