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Children pay price of US offensive<br>
by <br>
Tuesday 16 November 2004 9:11 AM GMT <br><br>
<b>Ala Barham slumps in his hospital bed and stares blankly into the air
in front of him. <br><br>
</b></font><font size=2>Twelve years old and still deeply in shock, he
can barely speak. <br><br>
Ala's family had fled the Iraqi city of Falluja before last Monday's
all-out offensive began. He was happily playing with his brother in the
garden of their uncle's house in a village outside the city. Then the
rocket hit. <br><br>
"My uncle died. They took us to hospital," he mumbles, speaking
in little more than a whisper. <br><br>
His brother lies face down on the bed next to him, a bandage around his
leg, a tube feeding into his stomach. <br><br>
Their mother sits on another bed, cradling her now fatherless
two-year-old nephew. <br><br>
Across the room, another two-year-old lies on a bed in a nappy, a blanket
covering one tiny leg. The other one was blown off by a shell.<br><br>
Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi says not a single civilian has
died in the assault to retake Falluja from anti-US forces allegedly led
by al-Qaida ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. <br><br>
But the charred bodies in the streets of the city and the children in
Baghdad's Naaman hospital tell a different story. <br><br>
"Is this child one of Zarqawi's followers?" asks Nusum Hasan,
flatly, holding out her nephew's bandaged right arm. <br><br>
"Is any of this his fault?" <br><br>
<b>Allawi's accusations<br><br>
</b>The families of these children were staying with relatives in the
villages of Saqlawiya and Azraqiya, just outside Falluja, when they were
wounded by air and artillery bombardments. <br><br>
First, they rushed to Falluja's main hospital, separated from the city
proper by the Euphrates river. Then, they were evacuated to Baghdad when
US and Iraqi forces seized the hospital before the full-scale attack
began last Monday night.<br>
<br>
Allawi has accused the hospital of exaggerating casualties. <br><br>
In April, US forces had to abandon their attempt to capture Falluja in
part because images of wounded women and children caused an outcry.
<br><br>
This latest assault has stoked resentment - already high in Iraq's Sunni
heartland - against the government and its US backers. <br><br>
<b>Mujahidin support<br><br>
</b>Marking the Muslim celebration that ends the month of Ramadan on
Sunday, doctors at Falluja's general hospital, prayed to God for the
resistance to defeat the US and Iraqi troops. <br><br>
</font><font face="verdana" size=2><b>"I want God to make the
mujahidin victorious against the American occupiers who have spared no
woman or child"<br><br>
</b></font><font face="verdana" size=1>Saria Karim Ubais,<br>
Falluja refugee<br>
</font><font size=2>"God, make the mujahidin in Falluja
victorious," one doctor told the 22-strong medical team gathered in
a corridor.<br>
<br>
His prayer was echoed by Saria Karim Ubais, who fled Falluja's Julan
district, a hotbed for fighters, and now lives with her family in a tent
pitched on the grounds of a Baghdad exhibition centre.<br>
<br>
"We were displaced by the American bombardment. They bombed families
without mercy," she said. "We went to the mosque as refugees
and they sent us to this camp.<br>
<br>
"I want God to make the mujahidin victorious against the American
occupiers who have spared no woman or child."<br><br>
</font><font size=3><b>Agencies<br>
By <br><br>
</b>You can find this article at:<br>
<a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/110BB55F-6635-4F73-A470-FE1DF9D8ED41.htm" eudora="autourl">http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/110BB55F-6635-4F73-A470-FE1DF9D8ED41.htm</a>
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