Unrest rages across Iraq
2004-11-16 09:21
Baquba - Gunfire and air strikes rocked the restive city of Baquba as violence raged across Iraq, despite a major assault on Fallujah where United States-led forces hunted out final pockets of resistance.
The week-long battle for Fallujah destroyed Iraq's most notorious rebel hideout, but militants took the fight to Mosul, Ramadi and Baquba, where more than 20 people have been reported killed.
In an audiotape posted on an internet site, a man claiming to be Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted man, exhorted insurgents around the country to rise up against US-led forces, brace for new battles and attack oil pipelines, a message that pushed up world crude prices.
The Fallujah assault has also raised fears about a humanitarian disaster with tens of thousands of residents forced to flee the Sunni Muslim city, while the plight of those who stayed behind remained uncertain.
Fallujah under US control
US troops prevented a Red Crescent aid convoy from entering Fallujah saying it was too dangerous.
US and Iraqi troops, meanwhile, pushed on with a clean-up operation in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, after warplanes blasted the southern area of the city on Monday.
The city is effectively under US and Iraqi control, but the military has yet to declare the end of the largest operation since last year's invasion of Iraq, as it rakes through the devastated streets.
At least 39 US soldiers have been killed and 275 wounded so far, while at least five Iraqi troops and more than 1 200 insurgents have also died, according to the US military.
During their painstaking, house-to-house search, marines found the bodies of 12 Arab men who had apparently been shot dead execution-style, said a reporter, who has seen in a week 27 corpses that were probably executed.
US television networks aired footage of marines entering a mosque in Fallujah before one marine shot an unarmed, wounded man in the head as he lay against a wall.
The networks said the marine who killed the wounded man had been detained and could face prosecution, echoing a worldwide scandal created by photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.
Bombs dropped on insurgents
Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said the Islamist group in Fallujah linked to al-Zarqawi had been crushed.
In Baquba, 60km north-east of Baghdad, US-led forces battled with up to 150 insurgents, killing at least 21 of them, said William Chlebowski, the acting US commander.
Major Art Weeks said 19 insurgents were killed when US aircraft dropped two 225kg bombs as they tried to move heavy mortars around in two trucks.
While Baquba has a roughly even Sunni and Shiite population, much of the violence has flared in the predominantly Sunni cities of Mosul, Ramadi, Samarra and Baiji.
Military commanders had warned that the battle for Fallujah would fan unrest across the Sunni Muslim heartlands of central and northern Iraq.