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'UNUSUAL WEAPONS' USED IN FALLUJAH<br>
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INTER-PRESS SERVICE<br>
International: Iraq<br>
November 26, 2004<br>
<a href="http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26440" eudora="autourl">http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26440<br>
</a>Dahr Jamail<br><br>
BAGHDAD, Nov 26 (IPS) - The U.S. military has used poison gas and
other<br>
non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah,
eyewitnesses<br>
report..<br><br>
"Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah," 35-year-old
trader from<br>
Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS. "They used everything -- tanks,
artillery,<br>
infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the
ground."<br><br>
Hammad is from the Julan district of Fallujah where some of the
heaviest<br>
fighting occurred. Other residents of that area report the use of
illegal<br>
weapons.<br><br>
"They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom
cloud," Abu<br>
Sabah, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area told IPS. "Then
small<br>
pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind
them."<br><br>
He said pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the
skin<br>
even when water was thrown on the burns. Phosphorous weapons as well
as<br>
napalm are known to cause such effects. "People suffered so much
from<br>
these," he said.<br><br>
Macabre accounts of killing of civilians are emerging through the
cordon<br>
U.S. forces are still maintaining around Fallujah.<br><br>
"Doctors in Fallujah are reporting to me that there are patients in
the<br>
hospital there who were forced out by the Americans," said Mehdi
Abdulla, a<br>
33-year-old ambulance driver at a hospital in Baghdad. "Some doctors
there<br>
told me they had a major operation going, but the soldiers took the
doctors<br>
away and left the patient to die."<br><br>
Kassem Mohammed Ahmed who escaped from Fallujah a little over a week
ago<br>
told IPS he witnessed many atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers in
the<br>
city.<br><br>
"I watched them roll over wounded people in the street with
tanks," he<br>
said. "This happened so many times."<br><br>
Abdul Razaq Ismail who escaped from Fallujah two weeks back said
soldiers<br>
had used tanks to pull bodies to the soccer stadium to be buried. "I
saw<br>
dead bodies on the ground and nobody could bury them because of the<br>
American snipers," he said. "The Americans were dropping some
of the bodies<br>
into the Euphrates near Fallujah."<br><br>
Abu Hammad said he saw people attempt to swim across the Euphrates
to<br>
escape the siege. "The Americans shot them with rifles from the
shore," he<br>
said. "Even if some of them were holding a white flag or white
clothes over<br>
their heads to show they are not fighters, they were all
shot.."<br><br>
Hammad said he had seen elderly women carrying white flags shot by
U.S.<br>
soldiers. "Even the wounded people were killed. The Americans
made<br>
announcements for people to come to one mosque if they wanted to
leave<br>
Fallujah, and even the people who went there carrying white flags
were<br>
killed."<br><br>
Another Fallujah resident Khalil (40) told IPS he saw civilians shot
as<br>
they held up makeshift white flags. "They shot women and old men in
the<br>
streets," he said. "Then they shot anyone who tried to get
their<br>
bodies...Fallujah is suffering too much, it is almost gone
now."<br><br>
Refugees had moved to another kind of misery now, he said. "It's a
disaster<br>
living here at this camp," Khalil said. "We are living like
dogs and the<br>
kids do not have enough clothes."<br><br>
Spokesman for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad Abdel Hamid Salim told
IPS<br>
that none of their relief teams had been allowed into Fallujah, and
that<br>
the military had said it would be at least two more weeks before
any<br>
refugees would be allowed back into the city.<br><br>
"There is still heavy fighting in Fallujah," said Salim.
"And the Americans<br>
won't let us in so we can help people."<br><br>
In many camps around Fallujah and throughout Baghdad, refugees are
living<br>
without enough food, clothing and shelter. Relief groups estimate there
are<br>
at least 15,000 refugee families in temporary shelters outside
Fallujah.<br><br>
Copyright © 2004 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved.<br><br>
*****<br>
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