Fallujah: 'A lot are dying'

2004-11-09 12:45

Fallujah - The battle to reclaim the rebel enclave of Fallujah, launched by Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on Monday evening, spread out through neighbourhoods and alleyways from the north towards the centre as marines knocked down walls, barged into houses or crouched outside.

"Multinational forces are moving in the city. They took the train station (in the north-east) and the engagement continues," said US marine spokesperson lieutenant Lyle Gilbert, describing the operation dubbed "Operation Dawn".

"As for casualties on the insurgents' side I can tell you that they are dying. A lot of them are dying and this is a good thing," he said.

In a two-pronged assault, thousands of US troops, followed by crack Iraqi soldiers, poured into the north-western Jolan neighbourhood and the Askari district in the north-east, where they took control of the city's station overnight.

No resistance

The troops "faced resistance at the beginning but there is almost no resistance now," a high-ranking US officer said.

Bullets ripped through dusty palm groves that lined a network of deserted streets in the Jolan district, where US marines pushed forwards in armoured vehicles and on foot, an AFP reporter said.

More like a ghost town than the festering hub of rebel insurgency described by US and Iraqi officials, every one house in about 10 had been flattened by the bombardments that have shaken the city on a near-nightly basis for weeks in the build-up to the long-awaited offensive, the reporter said.

Thousands of Fallujah's 300 000 residents have fled to surrounding camps or to Baghdad as living conditions deteriorated and fears grew of the impending assault.

Doctors inside the besieged city have painted a grim picture amid a chronic lack of medical equipment, trained staff, water and electricity.

Knocking down walls, they moved house-to-house through the neighbourhood, seen as the heart of rebel activity in Fallujah, spraying rounds of machine gunfire at buildings from where militants fought back with small arms fire.

'We are downing them'

"We are downing them," said Major Todd Desgrosseilliers, an executive officer with the marines. "We are using good old American firepower."

Attack helicopters swooped overhead, dropping flares on buildings from where the muzzle of insurgent rocket heads jutted out, while militants lashed back with anti-aircraft fire, the AFP reporter said.

Determined to bring the unruly city in line, Allawi also announced a raft of draconian emergency measures on Monday including an indefinite curfew that would be lifted on an area-by-area basis when order was restored.

About 20 000 US and Iraqi troops have been massing around Fallujah since mid-October. The offensive finally erupted a day after the government declared a state of emergency across most of Iraq.

- AFP