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To: sciAticA errAticA who wrote (32968)	5/3/2003 5:06:16 PM
From: sciAticA errAticA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Falluja remains tense, but not violent 04.05.2003 [00:23] FALLUJA, Iraq, May 3 (UPI) -- After a week that saw nearly a dozen local Iraqi's killed by U.S.-led troops, the western town of Falluja remained calm despite calls from some local religious leaders for the ouster of the military forces. A demonstration planned for Friday never materialized as a meeting with local elders and the U.S. military seemed to have temporarily defused tensions. But local individuals did display enormous hostility to the U.S. occupation. "U.S. killers: We will drive you out eventually," reads one sign in front of the military base in the town's center. Several people said that the local cleric's calls for cooperation with the U.S. forces would be ignored. "This sheikh is a coward, he is for America," said Mohammed, an older townsperson. "The true Muslim sheikh's have told us to fight the Americans. If they do not leave we will drive them out." As he spoke to a reporter, a U.S. Army Humvee drove down the main street of the town -- located just about an hour from Baghdad's city center -- and warned the people not to attack the Americans or throw stones. Overhead, Apache attacks helicopters and two OH-06 observation helicopters armed with chain-guns and rockets hovered within 50 yards of the crowd tracking their movements in anticipation of any trouble. "This is democracy?" snarled one man to a reporter. "Is this liberation? This war was not against Saddam; it was for Israel and for oil. Bush is a cowboy and a criminal. We know the American and British people are good people, but they have been lied to by these criminals. We will drive them out." When asked by a reporter how the Americans would be forced to leave, he turned even grimmer. "Watch," he said. Nearly a dozen interviews on Friday echoed these sentiments of the Iraqi population. The battle for the hearts and minds of Falluja seems to have been lost in a hail of 5.56 mm gunfire earlier in the week. U.S. forces fired on a crowd of about 200 people late Monday after they said they had been shot at by a crowd of protesters with rifles. In over a dozen interviews with witnesses of the shooting, the Iraqis denied any shots were fired at U.S. troops. Iraqi hospital staff have put the death toll at 17 from the protests, which started when residents wanted to stop the U.S. troops from using a local school as their headquarters. Throughout the city, which has numerous Mosques by Iraqi standards, calls to prayer and sermons to the faithful included calls to oppose the Americans. Reporters did not hear any calls for cooperation. Friday noon sermons are typically the most important and political in the Muslim world. The situation seems to have improved somewhat with the removal of the 82nd Airborne Division from the region. The unit was replaced with the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment, which -- unlike the 82nd -- had not committed either of the shootings of civilians. But locals continued to display the weapons they have been stockpiling for use against the Americans to a reporter, including RPGs, AK-47s and grenades. One grenade reportedly wounded seven Americans nearby on Thursday. Locals warned foreigners not be in the town on Sunday night, when a operation by some militants opponents of the occupation could be planned. The only violent incident on Friday when a documentary filmmaker attempted to film a local arms market that was doing brisk business in AK-47's as the population further arms itself. Surrounded by a crowd shouting that he was a spy, the people discharged some weapons and attempted to detain him as he and his driver tried to flee. Mitchell Prothero/UPI www1.iraqwar.ru