All-out Fallujah attack looms

2004-10-31 21:17

Baghdad - Iraq was on the brink of an all-out assault on rebel-held Fallujah on Sunday as deadly clashes erupted between US troops and insurgents in the neighbouring city of Ramadi.

Japan, meanwhile, vowed that its troops would stand firm in Iraq after Islamic militants demanding a pullout killed a 24-year-old Japanese tourist, and Poland rejected a similar desperate plea made by a Polish woman also held hostage.

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has pledged to restore order in the country ahead of national elections promised by January and is ready to use force, if necessary, with the support of US-led forces.

"We have entered the final phase to solve the Fallujah problem," said Allawi.

"If we cannot solve it peacefully, I have no choice but to take military action. I will do so with a heavy heart," he told a news conference in Baghdad.

Allawi said he met on Saturday night with religious and tribal leaders from the Sunni Muslim insurgency bastions of Fallujah and Ramadi, west of Baghdad, and the northern city of Mosul.

He said they all wanted the government to assert its authority in these hotspots.

The prime minister laid out three conditions that would spare Fallujah and other rebel cities military action.

These include the exit of foreign fighters and insurgents, the handover of heavy- and medium-sized weapons and allowing the government to begin the process of reconstruction in these cities.

In a sign of progress, Allawi announced that 167 foreign fighters had been arrested in Iraq, though he failed to specify where.

Four leaders in the militant group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the alleged frontman for the al-Qaeda terror network in Iraq, were killed.

Both the Iraqi and US governments say Fallujah is in the grip of operatives loyal to Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted man, who is accused of some of the worst attacks in the violence-plagued country over the past few months.

No talks with Zarqawi

"The people of Fallujah can hand over the foreign fighters and insurgents, kick them out or allow Iraqi forces to go in and do the job," said Allawi in a grave tone.

"The Iraqi government is still holding the olive branch ... but there will be no dialogue with Zarqawi, bin Laden and former regime loyalists."

Groups linked to the Jordanian-born militant have claimed some of the worst attacks and kidnappings to scar Iraq in the aftermath of the US-led war.

In the latest slaughter, Iraqi police found the head and decapitated body of a 24-year-old Japanese backpacker in a notorious area of Baghdad on Saturday evening - one week after Shosei Koda was paraded on Arabic television by a Zarqawi group.

His hands and feet had been bound and the remains wrapped in a US flag.

In a separate crisis, a Polish woman held hostage by a militant group in Iraq was shown in a video on Al-Jazeera TV Saturday night pleading anew for the withdrawal of Polish troops and the release of women prisoners to save her life.

- AFP