US soldiers getting into a vehicle on a road leading to Baghdad's Umm al-Kura Mosque (background) where clerics and members of the Sunnite Association of Muslim Ulema (Scholars) were meeting to discuss the siege of Fallouja.
The attack has caused tension between the country's Sunnite and Shiite communities
A family inside their tent in the garden of a house in Habbaniya, west of Baghdad. They are among the tens of thousands of Fallouja residents who fled from the town in advance of the attack
Gunmen on a street last week in Mosul, where at least three policemen, a national guardsman and a security man were killed when dozens of armed men surged into the city from all directions while policemen barricaded themselves in their stations
A fireman fighting the flames of burning vehicles following a car bomb in the center of Baghdad last week. There were many casualties
A general view of St. George's Church in Baghdad, which was badly damaged by a car bomb last week. At least three people were killed and 45 injured when two suspected car bombs exploded within minutes of each other outside two Baghdad churches
American troops and Iraqi policemen examining the wreck of an automobile following a car bombing in Kirkuk in which 14 people were injured
US forces were battling closer towards regaining control of Fallouja last week, hunting down insurgents from their underground hideouts in the Iraqi rebel city as a deadly car bomb wreaked havoc in the Baghdad rush hour. On the third full day of the biggest military offensive since last year's war, US and Iraqi forces discovered three Iraqi hostages in the basement of houses in Fallouja, handcuffed and starving.
The city, an epicenter of the insurgency, had long been off limits to American forces.But persistent unrest elsewhere in the country underlined the herculean task of Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi -- three of whose relatives were taken hostage last week -- in preparing Iraq for elections in January.
In Baghdad, at least seven people were killed and 28 wounded when a car bomb exploded in the middle of a traffic jam at the crossroads of a shopping street, police and medics said.
Despite initial successes and evidently superior firepower, combined US and Iraqi forces still faced pools of resistance in Fallouja, where rebels were thought to be hunkering down in underground hideouts.
"We control about 75 percent of the city. The more we go in the more we find the fight is becoming fiercer", said marine Major P.J. Batty. "Some people are pushing through the city fast for the information campaign and they're leaving the real work for us", another marine officer added.
Moving house-to-house through the rubble-strewn streets, marines and soldiers faced booby-trapped buildings, mortar fire, roadside bombs and snipers as the rebels resorted to guerrilla tactics to hamper their advance.
Troops found several buildings with their basements blocked off, a sign they said that the resistance fighters in the fiercely independent majority Sunnite Muslim city could have barricaded themselves underground.
At least 10,000 American troops from a pool of 20,000, who had been gathering outside Fallouja since the middle of October, had fanned out inside the city since November 8, backed by 2,000 Iraqi soldiers.
Eleven US soldiers and two Iraqi troops have died since the offensive was launched, along with scores of rebels, the military said. The casualties could not be independently verified.
There were no clear figures about how many civilians had been caught in the crossfire, even though about two-thirds of Fallouja's estimated 300,000-strong population was thought to have fled ahead of the fighting.
One day after the Iraqi military revealed it had found a "slaughterhouse" in Fallouja where foreign hostages had been killed, Batty said three Iraqi hostages had been found in "basements, handcuffed by their hands and ankles, starving, thirsty and tortured".
Hopelessly outnumbered, and with their leaders apparently gone, rebels who spoke to correspondents said they would fight to the end for their city, which became a no-go area for US forces after a battle in April ended in stalemate.
There was no let-up in the bombings and kidnappings elsewhere that forced Allawi to declare a state of emergency across most of Iraq and lay curfews in five cities, including Baghdad and Mosul.
But the tough-talking premier's family became caught up in the mayhem when a gang in three cars abducted his elderly cousin, Ghazi Allawi, his wife and their daughter-in-law in Baghdad.
A previously unknown group threatened to kill the three within 48 hours unless Allawi halted the assault and released all Iraqi prisoners. The threat was made in an Internet statement impossible to authenticate.
The deadly bombing in Baghdad occurred at the height of the morning rush, trapping people in burning cars and destroying shop fronts.
Injured civilians, many with their arms or legs broken, lay in the street awaiting ambulances, which had to battle through the heavy queues of cars that typically clog the roads of Central Baghdad.
Masked rebels also stormed into six Iraqi police stations in the northern city of Mosul, seizing weapons and torching buildings.
In what appeared to be a coordinated attack a day after a curfew was imposed on the restive, mainly-Sunnite city, gunmen pulled up in front police stations in various parts of the the city, forcing policemen to leave the buildings.
They looted weapons and ammunition from the stations before setting buildings and police cars on fire.
Adnan Pachachi, an Iraqi politician, warned last week that Fallouja was "not the end of the story" and that the US-led offensive there could trigger even further violence.
"It seems probable that Fallouja is not the end of the story. They [the insurgents] have already shown that they are able to perpetrate all kinds of indiscriminate violence all over the country", he told BBC television in an interview.
The Sunnite elder statesman, one of the leaders of the post-war Iraqi Governing Council and a former foreign minister from the pre-Saddam Hussein era, said the offensive to drive out and destroy rebels in Fallouja could backfire.
"I am afraid that if there's going to be an excessive use of force, this will be counterproductive and will create a great deal of anger and resentment".
When pressed whether he thought the American soldiers used excessive violence, he said: "I hope there won't be [an excessive use of force], but of course, you know, the fight is... not balanced at all. On one side you have overwhelming force, on the other you have really, very, very little".
The greatest danger in the battle for Fallouja was that it appeared to target Sunnites, since their participation was critical to any Iraqi political process, he said. "Unfortunately, some people are already feeling that the Sunnite population is being singled out... which of course is not quite true...
"The worst thing that can happen is the feeling that somehow action is being taken against a particular section of the population. Because without Sunnite full participation in the electoral process, I think the elections will fail".
Sunnite and Shiite figures have condemned the Fallouja assault, with Iraq's main Sunnite party quitting the government and calling for a boycott of the elections, due to be held in January.
Pachachi, an octogenarian, was originally named as Iraqi president on June 1 but turned down the post after being denounced as the candidate of the United States.
Sheikh Ghazi Yawar, a Sunnite tribal leader, became president, a largely ceremonial role.
Sunnite alienation
The onslaught against Fallouja, a symbol of the resistance to the occupation, has revealed the helpless state of the Sunnite leadership. Across all Sunnite regions of the country, no street protests were witnessed last week despite the deep shock of residents glued to television screens to follow the formidable military assault against an entire city.
The offensive, dubbed Operation Dawn, was launched at the beginning of last week by Allawi. It appears to have alienated a whole section of Iraqi society: the Sunnites, who under former leader Saddam Hussein were the favored religious community.
Since it was launched, preachers and imams have been calling through loudspeakers on mosque minarets in the region to help Fallouja residents survive the ordeal.
Up to 100,000 of the 300,000-strong population were estimated to have remained behind after the assault began, according to several unconfirmed estimates.
In Mosul, Samarra, Mahmoudiya and Baghdad, imams have harshly criticized the "extermination" of the population by the occupation forces. They also called on Iraqi troops taking part to "disobey orders and desert".
Ahmad Samarrai, an imam in Samarra, denounced "the violation of divine law and crimes against innocent civilians.
The American army will not be able to control all regions in Iraq, and Samarra is a living proof of that".
Samarra was taken from guerrilla control in a military offensive in October, but has been under curfew in the last four days following bombings and clashes have killed 36 people, including 26 Iraqi security force members.
In Mahmoudiya, posters splashed across the walls of the town have been calling for "revenge for the dead" in Fallouja.
And other Sunnite towns have witnessed attacks against police stations, including in Bakouba, Baiji and the capital.
The seven months of daily clashes and bombings across Sunnite areas seemed to have demobilized the community, whose leaders have avoided calling for street protests against the Fallouja offensive.
But the Committee of Muslim Ulema, the main Sunnite religious organization in Iraq, has called for sit-ins following the weekly Friday prayers.
A first US offensive on Fallouja last spring had left the city at the hands of the insurgents, fueling more solidarity with the guerrillas and granting more weight to the Sunnite community, which comprises about a quarter of the whole population.
Though a minority, the Sunnites have controlled the country since Ottoman times, has felt marginalized since the 2003 US invasion, which they perceive has favored the Shiite majority and the Kurds.
The Sunnites, therefore, tend to view the confrontation in Fallouja as a means for a political comeback, and have even been using it as a lever for their participation in the political process and the elections.
A number of Sunnite clergy and political leaders have already called for a boycott of the legislative elections.
Hareth Dari, head of the Committee of Muslim Ulema, said last week that the polls would be held "on the bodies of our victims, whether in Fallouja or elsewhere", adding that the elections "aim at achieving the goals of the occupiers of Iraq and to serve the interests of the Iraqi forces that are collaborating with them".
The only Sunnite party in the government, the Islamic Party, left the coalition last week and has decided to boycott the elections in protest at the offensive.
But a boycott by the Sunnites would compromise the political process and the elections, according to political analysts.
"It would be an embarrassment for the Americans, as it is the new National Assembly that will draft the constitution and decide on the future of the country", Nizar Samarrai commented.
A senior Sunnite figure rebuked Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country's senior Shiite clergyman, for remaining silent about the US-Iraqi assault on Fallouja.
"We reproach Sistani for not officially taking a position on the offensive and we call on him to do so", said Sheikh Mahdi Sumaydai, the chief of a Sunnite religious group.
Sumaydai, also the imam of the Ibn Taymiya Mosque in Baghdad, recalled that all Sunnite religious leaders supported the Shiites in the holy city of Najaf and the Baghdad quarter of Sadr City when the US-led military clashed with militants loyal to the radical cleric Moktada Sadr.
"Is it the case that the Shiites are not interested in what is happening now? Is not Fallouja an Iraqi city and are its residents not the brothers of this country?" Sumaydai asked.
Rebels storm police stations in Mosul
As the fighting continued in Fallouja, masked rebels stormed into six police stations in the northern city of Mosul, seizing weapons and torching buildings.
In what appeared to be a coordinated attack one day after a curfew was imposed on the restive city, gunmen pulled up in front of police stations in various parts of the city, forcing policemen out.
They then looted weapons and ammunition from the stations before setting buildings and police cars on fire.
Dozens of gunmen were seen fanning out on the city streets and some hunkered behind sandbags and were seen firing mortar rounds on US and Iraqi forces stationed on four of Mosul's five main bridges.
The provincial governor of Mosul declared a curfew after at least five people, including three policemen, were killed in clashes throughout the city. The move appeared to raise the prospects of an all-out assault by Iraqi and US forces in the city against rebels. The interim Iraqi defense minister, Hazem Shaalan, pledged to cleanse Mosul of insurgent fighters
"We will launch operations in Mosul, because some groupings that came from neighboring countries are trying to step up terror operations there".
Mosul has seen a rash of suicide car bombings against Iraqi and American forces in recent weeks.
And in Samarra, 125 kilometers north of Baghdad, car bombs and clashes killed at least 33 Iraqis as American and Iraqi forces were preparing to attack Fallouja.
Outgunned but determined to fight, rebels unleashed a double car bomb attack outside a local government building, police and medics said. This was followed by another car bomb in front of a teachers' college in the city, while a fourth then exploded in the south of Samarra.
Gunmen also attacked three police stations and clashed with US and Iraqi troops in Samarra.
"We have received 33 killed and 48 wounded," said Dr. Naufal Mohammad at Samarra's general hospital.
The dead, a mix of Iraqi police, soldiers and civilians, included Brigadier Abdelrazak Jarmani, a local police chief.
US and Iraqi troops stormed Samarra at the start of October to wrest control of the city from rebels. The battle marked the first major offensive to reclaim a Sunnite flashpoint ahead of the elections.
But an American military commander admitted after the brief operation that many rebel leaders simply went to ground.
In Ramadi, another Sunnite bastion upstream on the Euphrates from Fallouja, 20 US soldiers were wounded in action.
A delegation from the interim parliament had tried to find a peaceful solution to the crisis by talking to leaders in Fallouja, but in vain.
Allawi had insisted that the city hand over foreign fighters, including Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musaab Zarkawi, and his followers, who are thought to use it as a base, or allow Iraqi forces to go in and do the job.
Fallouja leaders consistently denied that Zarkawi was in the city.
Allawi also wanted all rebels to lay down their heavy and medium weapons.
The increased military activity flared as news broke that the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had written to the United States, Britain and Iraq to warn them that an assault on Fallouja could undermine the elections.
Meanwhile, in the ethnically-mixed city of Kirkuk, in the oil-rich area 250 kilometers north of the capital, 14 people were injured in a car bomb attack last week against the governor of Kikuk Province, who escaped unharmed, police said.
Four of Abdelrahman Mustafa's bodyguards were among the wounded when the explosion ripped through his convoy as it drove through the city's northern Imam Kassim neighborhood, police chief Turhan Youssef said.
The attack also wounded 10 passers-by, said Dr. Rida Abdallah of the Kirkuk general hospital.
It was the first time that the governor of the province had been targeted.
The area sees frequent tension between Kurds and Arabs.
© Monday Morning 2004
