US pounds Fallujah, Australia says 'no more troops'
US troops pounded the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah with airstrikes and tank fire, and the Iraqi government appealed to residents to expel ”foreign terrorists” to prevent an all-out attack.
Separately, the most feared militant group in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid and Jihad, said in an internet statement that it would take orders from Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida from now on.
A suicide driver in Baghdad exploded a car near a police patrol, killing at least seven people and wounding 20.
A mortar shell also exploded at a Baghdad sports stadium yesterday, minutes before interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi arrived to inspect a cash-for-weapons program for Shiite fighters. Insurgents, meanwhile, ambushed and killed nine Iraqi policemen as they were returning home from a training course in Jordan.
Throughout the day, the crackle of automatic weapons fire and the thud of artillery echoed across Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, as fighting between American troops and insurgents raged on the eastern and southern edges of the city, witnesses said.
Clashes blocked the main road leading to Baghdad, and plumes of smoke rose above the flat-roofed houses in the city’s Askari and Shuhada neighbourhoods.
US Marines said yesterday that they used small arms, tanks, artillery, mortars and seven precision airstrikes against Fallujah insurgents. The Marines said that insurgents were seen taking refuge in a mosque but that troops did not fire on them.
American forces have stepped up attacks around Fallujah since peace talks between the Iraqi government and Fallujah clerics broke down last Thursday after city leaders rejected Allawi’s demand to hand over “foreign terrorists,” including the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi.
Fallujah clerics insist al-Zarqawi, whose Tawhid and Jihad movement has claimed responsibility for multiple suicide car-bombings and hostage beheadings, is not in the city. Fallujah fell under the control of hard-line Islamic clerics and their armed followers after US Marines lifted a three-week siege in late April.
The earlier Internet statement from al-Zarqawi’s group, which also could not be verified, affirmed the “allegiance of Tawhid and Jihad’s leadership and soldiers to the chief of all fighters, Osama bin Laden.”
It said the announcement was timed for the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when “Muslims need more than ever to stick together in the face of the religion’s enemies.”
Meanwhile, Australia has rejected an informal request from the UN to send more troops to Iraq to protect the world body’s staff there, a government spokesman said today.
“We have always made it clear that we have made a contribution to Iraq,” said Chris Kenny, a spokesman for Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. “We will be staying the course but we have always made it clear we will not be increasing numbers” of Australians troops stationed in Iraq.
Kenny said the UN request for military help came “some months ago”.
Australia, a strong US ally, sent 2,000 elite troops to take part in last year’s invasion of Iraq and still has 920 military personnel in and around the country in non-combat roles.
Last week, Canberra said it would equip and train dozens of Fijian soldiers being sent to Iraq to protect the UN presence.
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