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US forces pound fallujah and nearby villages Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/261/world/U_S_forces_pound_Fallujah_and_:.shtmlhttp://www.boston.com/dailynews/261/world/U_S_forces_pound_Fallujah_and_:.shtml
U.S. forces pound Fallujah and nearby villages, Iraqis say 44 dead
By Kim Housego, Associated Press, 9/17/2004 07:02
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) A suicide attacker detonated a car packed with explosives in front of a row of parked police cars in central Baghdad on Friday, killing at least five people and wounding 20, officials said.
A half dozen police cars were blocking a bridge leading to the central Haifa Street, where Iraqi and American forces were conducting raids, when a blue Chevrolet drove up to them, policeman Ammar Ali said. Police told the driver to stop, but he continued to advance and exploded his vehicle in the middle of the parked cars, he said.
The bombing came after the United States launched new airstrikes on the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah and nearby villages Friday. The United States put the death toll at 60 insurgents; Iraqi officials said 44 people were dead, including women and children.
The Iraqi Health Ministry said five people were killed and 20 wounded in the car bombing. Thousands of shoppers streamed from the area after police fired shots to disperse the crowd.
''I saw human flesh and blood in the street, then I fled,'' said Mouayad Shehab as he escaped the scene.
The police vehicles had been helping to seal of the area around Haifa Street, where American and Iraqi forces had raided suspected insurgent hideouts in the morning, sparking a gunbattle. More than 50 suspects were detained during the sweeps on Haifa street, a virtual ''no-go'' area for U.S. forces, said ministry spokesman Sabah Kadhim. There was no immediate word on casualties.
The clashes came a day after a team of kidnappers grabbed two Americans and a Briton in a dawn raid on their home on a leafy Baghdad neighborhood a bold abduction that underlines the increasing danger for foreigners in the embattled capital as violence soars ahead of national elections planned for early next year.
The Fallujah attacks began late Thursday, targeting a compound about 12 miles south of Fallujah where militants loyal to Jordanian-born terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi militants gathered to plot attacks on coalition forces, the military said in a statement.
On Friday, warplanes bombed a cluster of houses in Fallujah believed to be used by Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group.
The U.S. military claimed that up to 60 suspected insurgents may have been killed. U.S. forces, however, have not patrolled inside Fallujah since ending a three-week siege of the city that left hundreds dead.
''The terrorists targeted in this strike were believed to be associated with recent bombing attacks and other terrorist activities throughout Iraq,'' the military said.
Militants who survived the Thursday strikes later sought refuge in nearby villages. U.S. forces pursued but quickly broke off an offensive to hunt them down to avoid civilian casualties, the statement said.
Blood covered the floors of the Fallujah General Hospital as doctors struggled to cope with a flood of casualties, many brought to the hospital in private cars with ambulances overwhelmed. Relatives pounded their chests in grief and denounced the United States.
Health Ministry spokesman Saad al-Amili said at least 44 people were killed and 27 injured in the Fallujah strikes. He said 17 children and two women were among the wounded. Hospital officials in Fallujah said women and children were also among the dead, but exact figures were not immediately available.
Residents of Fazat Shnetir, the city where the compound was located, could be seen digging graves Friday to bury the dead in groups of four.
Religious leaders switched on loudspeakers at the Fallujah mosque to call on residents to donate blood while chanting ''God is great.''
Insurgents have only strengthened their grip on Fallujah since the United States withdrew, regularly mounting attacks against Marine positions and military convoys on the city's outskirts.
On Thursday, three U.S. Marines assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were killed by hostile fire in separate incidents in the western Anbar province while conducting security operations, the military said. One Marine died at the scene and the two others died later of their wounds. No other details were released.
Iraq has seen a surge of violence in the past week that has killed more than 250 people nationwide.
Insurgents have turned to kidnappings and spectacular bombings as the weapon of choice to pressure the United States and its allies to pull out of Iraq and embarrass the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Even in the heavily guarded Green Zone where the U.S. Embassy is located foreigners were warned in the last 10 days to be on guard against possible kidnapping attempts, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.
More than 100 foreigners have been kidnapped, some in a bid to collect lucrative ransoms. Many have been executed, creating a seige-like mentality among the dwindling international community.
Iraqi interim President Ghazi al-Yawer, on a visit to The Hague, Netherlands, on Thursday insisted that security was Iraq's priority and that it was ''a little bit too premature to decide'' whether elections would be held as planned.
The U.S. Embassy identified the Americans kidnapped Thursday as Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, but the identity of the British man was not disclosed.
The three worked for Gulf Services Co., a United Arab Emirates-based construction company. ''They were doing work under contracts with them in Baghdad,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
The abduction took place Thursday in the al-Mansour neighborhood, one of the most affluent in Baghdad.
Early Friday, 40 miles north of Baghdad, police found the corpse of a man they believed to be a Westerner. The body was pulled from the Tigris River near the central Iraqi village of Yethrib, said Capt. Hakim al-Azawi, the head of security at Tikrit's Teaching Hospital. The man, described as tall and well built with blonde hair, had been shot in the back of the head. His hands were cuffed behind his back.
It appeared unlikely that the corpse was that of one of the three Westerners kidnapped Thursday because it was found so far away from the capital. At least five other Westerners are currently being held hostage in Iraq, including an Iraqi-American man, two female Italian aid workers and two French reporters, both of whom have dark hair.
An Internet statement and videotape released by an Iraqi militant group Thursday shows the purported firing squad-like killing of three Iraqi truck drivers who had ''confessed'' to carrying supplies for American forces.
The group, calling itself the ''Ansar al-Sunna Army,'' said the hostages were captured while transporting goods from Safwan near the Kuwaiti border to the American military base at Taji, about 15 miles north of Baghdad.
There was no way to independently authenticate the statement and video, which were released on a web site known for carrying Islamic extremist content.
A statement in the name of Ansar al-Sunna took responsibility for last month's kidnapping and killing of 12 Nepalese hostages in Iraq.
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