Marines lift Falluja siege

[BoredShirtless]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/ ... 17066.html

Marines lift Falluja siege
April 30, 2004


US Marines have announced the end of the bloody, nearly four-week-old siege of Falluja, saying their forces would pull back from the city and allow a new, all-Iraqi force commanded by a former Saddam Hussein-era general to move in and take over security.

The deal came after intense international pressure on the United States to find a peaceful resolution to the standoff. Only last week, US commanders had been threatening to launch an all-out attack on the city to root out Sunni insurgents.

Meanwhile, 10 US soldiers were killed yesterday - eight of them in a car bomb explosion south of Baghdad. The two others were killed by a convoy attack in Baghdad and roadside bomb in Baqoubah, north of the capital.

The deaths raise to 126 the number of US service members killed in combat in April, the bloodiest month for US forces in Iraq.

The military announced that another soldier died in a vehicle accident in western Baghdad. At least 736 US troops have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. Up to 1200 Iraqis have also been killed this month.

A foreign civilian was shot dead in an attack on his car in the southern city of Basra. "The South African diplomatic mission in Kuwait has confirmed the death of yet another South African in the ongoing conflict in Iraq," a foreign ministry statement said.

Three members of an Iraqi family were killed when a rocket hit a residential building in the northern city of Beiji.

Under a deal reached late on Wednesday, a new, all-Iraqi military force known as the Fallujah Protection Army is to start moving into the city to impose security today, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne said.

Marine forces will end their siege of Fallujah, pulling back from their positions in and around the city, while the FPA forms a new cordon around it and then moves into the city, he said.

"The plan is that the whole of Fallujah will be under the control of the FPA," he said.

The siege, launched on April 5 after the killing and mutilation of four American civilians in Fallujah, killed hundreds of Iraqis, including many civilians, according to hospital sources. At least eight Marines were killed, but a full American casualty count from the battle has not been released.

On the southern edge of Fallujah, US Marines from 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment began packing up gear yesterday, saying they had been ordered to withdraw from the industrial zone they have held throughout the siege.

Bulldozers flattened sand barriers that troops had set up along the city's southern edge. Lieutenant Colonel Byrne said the Marines would remain around the Fallujah area, but not in an immediate cordon or inside the city.

The FPA will consist of up to 1100 Iraqi soldiers led by a former general from Saddam's military. Lieutenant Colonel Byrne identified the commander only as General Salah, a former division commander under Saddam. The force will be subordinate to the Marine 1st Expeditionary Force.

Many of the guerillas in Fallujah are thought to be former members of Saddam's regime or military. Last week, Iraq's top US administrator, Paul Bremer, announced that the new Iraqi army would start recruiting top former Saddam-era officers who were not involved in the regime's crimes.

The moves came after three days of intense violence in Fallujah, aired live on television screens with images of explosions and burning buildings. The battles increased pressure on the United States to find a resolution to the standoff.

"Violent military action by an occupying power against inhabitants of an occupied country will only make matters worse," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned. "It's definitely time, time now for those who prefer restraint and dialogue to make their voices heard."

Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, a member of the US-appointed Governing Council also called on the United States to stop attacks in Fallujah and said if the United States refused, his Iraqi Islamic Party would consider withdrawing from the council.

"We call on the American troops that are bombing Fallujah to stop immediately and withdraw outside of the city," he told al-Jazeera television. "Otherwise, we'll be forced ... to consider the subject of withdrawal."

Yesterday, US troops at the main checkpoint in and out of Fallujah opened fire on a car, killing several Iraqis but there were differing accounts of the circumstances of the attacks.

Marine Captain James Edge said a car screeched into the razor wire near the main Marine checkpoint into Fallujah and gunmen inside opened fire on the Americans with assault rifles.

US troops returned fire with a Humvee-mounted heavy machine gun, killing at least three men in the car, Captain Edge said. A fourth person was wounded but it was not clear if he was in the car or a bystander, he said.

An AP reporter, however, saw US soldiers open fire on a pick-up truck at the checkpoint, killing a seven-member family that was trying to flee the city. It was not clear if the accounts referred to separate incidents.

In southern Iraq, witnesses reported that Shiite militiamen clashed yesterday afternoon with US troops at a base in the holy city of Najaf.

There were no immediate details on the extent of the clashes. Earlier in the day, militiamen fired a volley of seven mortars at the base, causing no casualties.

US commanders at the base, located about five kilometres from the holy Shiite shrines at the city's heart, said they were unable to pursue the source of the mortars because they didn't have authority to go into parts of the city.

Yesterday, US troops beefed up security around the base, setting up sand berms in empty lots around it.

The US military is treading extremely carefully in Najaf, moving to put down radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army militia while staying away from the Imam Ali Shrine and other sensitive Shiite holy sites.

[Vympel]

I just love this- bring in a former Saddam general to police an allegedly pro-Saddam town.