US forces hit back in city battles
US forces today regained control of a southern Iraqi city seized this week by a rebellious Shiite militia and resumed their offensive in Fallujah after a brief halt for talks.
US troops fanned out across Kut after meeting little resistance in a major foray by the American military into the south, where US allies have struggled to deal with the uprising by the al-Mahdi Army, led by a radical Shiite cleric.
Militants were holding at least six foreign hostages in unknown locations in the country.
Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi vowed not to withdraw 530 troops in the south after kidnappers threatened to burn three Japanese captives alive unless the troops leave the country.
In Fallujah, west of Baghdad – scene of bloody fighting with Sunni insurgents this week – marines called a halt to offensive operations at noon (8am Irish time), while a delegation of city leaders met with marine commanders, said Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne, commander of the 1st Battalion 5th Marine Regiment.
But an hour and half later, Marines were given the go-ahead to resume operations, Byrne said. US forces were heard firing into the city soon after. The reasons for the end of the suspension were not clear but it appeared negotiations never took place.
The heavy siege of the city, a bastion of anti-US Sunni guerrillas, has angered even pro-US Iraqi officials.
“These operations were a mass punishment for the people of Fallujah,” Adnan Pachachi, a senior member of the US-appointed Governing Council, told Al-Arabiya TV.
“It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah and we consider these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal.”
Five days of heavy fighting using tanks, warplanes and helicopter gunships in residential areas of the city of 200,000 has killed more than 280 Iraqis and at least four Marines.
Insurgents, armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, have put up stiff resistance, but marines have said they are winning the battle, holding at one point around a quarter of the city.
Scores of Fallujah residents tried to leave the city during the brief pause in fighting, said Byrne.
Troops used loudspeakers overnight to tell people that old men, women and children would be allowed to leave, but not “military-age men”.
Today marked the first anniversary of the capture of Baghdad by invading US forces that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein – symbolised by the April 9, 2003 toppling of a statue of Saddam by Marines with a crowd of cheering Iraqis in central Baghdad’s Firdos Square.
That image became symbol of liberation from his dictatorial regime.
But there was no celebrating today and the capital was tense. US forces imposed a curfew in the morning around Firdos Square.
At the western entrance to the capital, gunmen freely roamed the main highway, destroying a tanker truck that sent a huge pall of smoke over the city.
Other gunmen on the highway were seen stopping a car carrying two Western civilians – apparently private security guards, since both had sidearms. The gunmen pulled the men from the car, firing at the ground to warn them to obey. Their fate was not immediately known.
Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the top US general in Iraq, vowed on Wednesday that coalition forces were launching a new operation dubbed “Resolute Sword” to destroy al-Sadr’s al-Mahdi Army militia, which besides Kut was in control of the southern city of Kufa and the central part of nearby Najaf.
US forces moved into Kut two days after Ukrainian forces abandoned the city in the face of heavy fighting with al-Sadr followers.
Police in several cities have also abandoned their stations or stood aside as the gunmen roam the streets – raising concerns over the performance and loyalty of a force US administrators are counting on to keep security in the future Iraq.
US forces that swept into Kut before dawn seized police stations, forcing out both Iraqi police and militiamen and seizing all police weapons stores throughout the city, witnesses said. There was little resistance. During the day, Americans were out in force, patrolling Kut’s streets.
