Fallujah cease-fire reported

By Seattle Times news services

	Muqtada al-Sadr
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BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents have agreed to a cease-fire in the Sunni town of Fallujah, one of the Iraqi Governing Council delegates to the negotiations said early today.

The delegate, Hachem al-Hassani, said in a live broadcast on Arab television al-Jazeera that the cease-fire was to begin this morning. "If it sticks for 12 hours, then there will be a phased withdrawal (of U.S. Marines) from the city," he said.

If a cease-fire does take hold, it could begin to quiet the chaos that has left at least 47 Americans and hundreds of Iraqis dead — including many women and children — and turned the Sunni Triangle city into a rallying point for those opposed to the U.S. military presence. The weeklong outburst in Fallujah had quickly spread to the Shiite south, where coordinated attacks were called by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Al-Hassani did not detail conditions of the cease-fire, and the U.S. military did not confirm that the cease-fire was set. The Americans had suspended offensive operations at Fallujah for a while on Friday, and again yesterday, to let the negotiations proceed.

Iraqi developments • Insurgents who on Friday kidnapped an American civilian, Thomas Hammil, 43, of Mississippi, threatened in a videotape released yesterday to kill and mutilate him unless U.S. forces withdraw from the city of Fallujah. Japanese television reported early today that three Japanese civilians taken hostage in Fallujah had been released. • A battalion of the new Iraqi army refused to go to Fallujah last week to support U.S. Marines battling for control of the city, senior U.S. Army officers said. The officers said the 620-man force balked after being shot at while traveling through a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad. • U.S. forces declared themselves in control of the southern city of Kut early this morning, saying that they had routed most of an al-Mahdi Army contingent after three days of combat. • Forty-seven Iraqis were killed Friday in the town of Baqouba, northeast of the capital, during a daylong battle for control of the police station and the governor's building, according to a U.S. Army combat report. • The Fort Lewis-based Army Stryker Brigade, working with Iraqi Security forces, killed 15 people and detained another 12 Friday and yesterday after fighting broke out in the northern city of Mosul when U.S. forces attempted to stop a demonstration.

Marine officers at Camp Fallujah, the Marine base several miles outside the city, reported that some women and children had fled Fallujah during the cease-fire, but that the numbers were fewer than they had expected.

A naval construction brigade, originally scheduled to undertake public works projects, scouted the area for places to build a refugee camp, but it was not certain that a camp would be needed.

Mahmoud Othman, another member of the U.S. -appointed Iraqi Governing Council, expressed little optimism that the cease-fire would hold. "Fighters in the city say they want the Americans to withdraw, but I don't know how likely that is," he told The Associated Press.

For their part, U.S. military officials have demanded that the insurgents lay down their arms and turn over the people responsible for the killing and mutilation of four American civilian workers in the city March 31.

U.S. Marines raided the city, a center of anti-Americanism, five days after that attack, using attack helicopters, tanks and warplanes against militants firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons.

Another cease-fire was announced yesterday in the south, where al-Sadr pledged that his al-Mahdi Army militia would not launch attacks this weekend in honor of a religious festival at Karbala that has attracted more than 1 million pilgrims. Sadr's forces currently control most of Karbala and Najaf. Other supporters are fighting coalition forces in Nasiriyah and Kufa and in sections of Baghdad.

U.S. forces already had announced they would not attack Karbala and Najaf this weekend, but would continue action in the other cities.

Combat continued to rage in many areas of Iraq yesterday amid signs that much of the country was outside the control of coalition forces and that more combat lay ahead.

A U.S. airman was killed and two were wounded yesterday in a mortar attack on an American base in Balad, northwest of Baghdad. He was the 47th U.S. service member to die last week in combat. Announcements in Baghdad frequently lag behind reports in the field and the tally apparently did not include two Marines reportedly killed at Fallujah and Ramadi.

Al-Sadr's militias had tried to seize control of stations and government buildings in several cities staffed by Iraqi officials and officers. U.S. officials have vowed to crush the militia forces, which they say number in the thousands.

In Sadr City, American tanks that had been posted outside of police stations were not in place yesterday. A witness said that earlier in the day, American forces tore down posters showing al-Sadr, and ran over them in tanks. Militants have said they would respond fiercely if the coalition arrests al-Sadr, for whom a warrant has been issued in connection with the murder of another cleric in Najaf in April 2003.

News of the cease-fire agreements came at the end of one of the bloodiest weeks since U.S. troops entered Iraq 13 months ago and were considered remarkable for reasons beyond the cessation of hostilities.

For one, it marked the first direct involvement in the conflict of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, which is frequently mocked here as a group of powerless puppets.

And it also seemed to be a departure from the coalition position that the insurgents would be "captured or killed."

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the coalition military spokesman in Baghdad, had regularly referred to the insurgents as terrorists and criminals — "We do not negotiate with terrorists" — and described them as likely remnants of Saddam Hussein's military.

"We believe what we are seeing in Fallujah are former military, perhaps former Saddam Fedayeen, perhaps former Republican Guard," he said. "How they fight indicates military training, rather than terrorist training."

Kimmitt said yesterday he had no information on what the terms were that Iraqi Governing Council members were negotiating in Fallujah. He said any cease-fire "would not be timed with a clock or a calendar, but would be judged based on when progress is no longer being made."

Kimmitt said there were no signs that insurgents in Fallujah would agree to stop fighting.

"At this point it's an aspiration," he said.

"It may be that there is no leadership there, but small clusters that haven't gotten the word. It may be they have chosen to fight."

Marine officials near Fallujah expressed deep skepticism that the cease-fire would hold.

"Given the virulent nature of the enemy, the prospect of some city father walking in and getting Joe Jihadi to give himself up is pretty slim," said Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, who commands the 5th Marine Battalion, using the Arabic word for Islamic warrior.

"That's fine," Byrne added, "because they'll get whipped up, come out fighting again and get mowed down."

A third battalion of Marines reached Fallujah yesterday, adding more than 1,000 troops to the existing force of 2,500.

"What comes next is the destruction of anti-coalition forces in Fallujah," Byrne said.

"Their only choices are to submit or die."

Many Marines expressed concern that a cease-fire would give their opponents a chance to regroup after five days of intense combat.

"Any pause in the battle on our part gives a chance for them to refit themselves and come back a little harder," said Sgt. Daryl Hill, 38, whose company has spent four days and nights positioned along the front line between a deserted industrial area where the Marines are based and a residential district from which snipers shoot at them.

"... now it's time to get moving," he said. "They took some comrades from us, but we can't sit back and grieve over our loss. It's payback time."

Compiled from The New York Times, Knight Ridder Newspapers, The Washington Post and The Associated Press.

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