U.S. forces begin attack on Fallujah

By JIM KRANE
The Associated Press

AP Image taken from TV shows U.S. and Iraqi forces detaining men today in the main hospital in Fallujah, Iraq. The U.S. and Iraqi troops entered the hospital and took control of two key bridges in the city's western district in what seemed to be the first stage of the assault.

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An AC-130 gunship raked the city with 40-mm cannon fire as explosions from U.S. artillery lit up the night sky. Intermittent artillery fire blasted southern neighborhoods of Fallujah, and orange fireballs from high-explosive airbursts could be seen above the rooftops.

Flares were dropped to illuminate targets, and defenders fought back with heavy machine-gun fire. Flaming red tracer rounds streaked through the sky from guerrilla positions inside the city, 32 miles west of Baghdad.

In Washington, Pentagon officials said taking the hospital and bridges were some of the initial objectives of the offensive but would not say whether U.S. and Iraqi forces would push farther into the city immediately.

U.S. officials said they expected the toughest fighting when U.S. forces enter the main part of the city on the east bank of the river, including the Jolan neighborhood where insurgent defenses are believed the strongest.

Also today, assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a civilian convoy on the road to Baghdad's international airport, hitting two vehicles, police officer Saad al-Azzawi said. One vehicle was overturned by the blast while the other burst into flames. Al-Azzawi said the number of casualties was not known. Police blocked the site of the explosion.

Earlier, the initial attack on Fallujah began just hours after the Iraqi government declared 60 days of emergency rule throughout most of the country.

CNN reported on its Web site that the hospital was taken by U.S. Marines and the 36th Iraqi Commando Battalion with only minor resistance.

At least 50 men of military age were handcuffed after room-to-room searches, but about half were released, CNN said.

U.S. military officials said the hospital needed to be secured so hospital workers could attend to casualties without facing intimidation by insurgents and to end its use as a source of anti-U.S. propaganda.

In the past, hospital officials have said U.S. airstrikes killed only innocent civilians, a claim that the U.S. military disputed.

Dr. Salih al-Issawi, the head of the hospital, said he had asked U.S. officers to allow doctors and ambulances to cross the Euphrates to the main part of the city to help the wounded, but they refused. There was no confirmation from the United States.

"The American troops' attempt to take over the hospital was not right because they thought that they would halt medical assistance to the resistance," he said by telephone. "But they did not realize that the hospital does not belong to anybody, especially the resistance."

During the siege of Fallujah last April, doctors at the hospital were a main source of reports about civilian casualties, which U.S. officials insisted were overblown. Those reports generated strong public outrage in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world, prompting the Bush administration to call off the offensive.

U.S. jets have been pounding the insurgent bastion for days, launching its heaviest airstrikes in six months Saturday.

U.S. intelligence said that between 1,000 and 6,000 insurgents have dug in behind defenses and booby traps in the city of about 300,000 that has become a symbol throughout the Islamic world of Iraqi resistance to the U.S.-led coalition.

Sgt. Maj. Carlton Kent, the top enlisted Marine in Iraq, told troops yesterday that the battle of Fallujah would be "no different" than the historic fights at Inchon in Korea, the flag-raising victory at Iwo Jima or the bloody assault to dislodge the North Vietnamese from the ancient citadel of Hue seized in the 1968 Tet Offensive.

"You're all in the process of making history," Kent told some 2,500 Marines. "This is another Hue city in the making. I have no doubt, if we do get the word, that each and every one of you is going to do what you have always done: Kick some butt."

Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said the state of emergency, which applied throughout the country except for Kurdish-governed areas in the north, is a "very powerful message that we are serious" about reining in insurgents before elections set for Jan. 27.

Under the law, all traffic and men between the ages of 15 and 55 were banned from the streets of Fallujah and surrounding areas 24 hours a day.

All members of the Fallujah police and security services were suspended indefinitely, and all roads into Fallujah and neighboring Ramadi were closed indefinitely.

Allawi said nothing in public about the beginning of the attack in Fallujah, although U.S. commanders have said it would be his responsibility to order the storming of the city.

Insurgents, meanwhile, waged a second day of multiple attacks across the restive Sunni Triangle north and west of Baghdad, storming police stations, assassinating government officials and setting off deadly car bombs. About 60 people were killed — including two U.S. soldiers — and 75 injured in attacks Saturday and yesterday. The widespread insurgent attacks may have been aimed at relieving the pressure on Fallujah, where about 10,000 U.S. troops — including two Marine battalions and an Army battalion — were massed for the assault along with two Iraqi brigades.

Government negotiators yesterday reported the failure of last-minute peace talks even as Allawi said dialogue with Fallujah leaders was still possible in the event a large-scale military action began. Allawi, a secular-minded Shiite Muslim, faced strong pressure from within the minority Sunni community to avoid an all-out assault. "I urge the brother prime minister to reconsider the issue of storming Fallujah and to give another chance for dialogue," Hatim Jassim, a member of the Iraqi National Council, told Al Jazeera television.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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