U.S. Forces Recapture Southern Iraq City
By LOURDES NAVARRO, Associated Press Writer
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FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. forces Friday retook a southern city seized by a rebellious Shiite militia, but an American-declared halt in the embattled city of Fallujah was undercut by bursts of gunfire on the first anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.
Iraq (news - web sites)'s top U.S. administrator, L. Paul Bremer, announced a unilateral pause in the 5-day-old Fallujah operation to allow Sunni clerics and American military leaders an opportunity to talk with anti-coalition insurgents.
It also was designed to allow in humanitarian aid and let beleaguered residents bury their dead after five days of fighting. Cars filled with women, children and the elderly headed out of the city, a bastion of anti-U.S. Sunni guerrillas 35 miles west of Baghdad.
The violence that has intensified and spread throughout Iraq this week has created a degree of cooperation between anti-American elements in both the Sunni and Shiite Muslim communities, which have been deeply at odds for decades.
The Fallujah operation even prompted one of the most pro-American members of the U.S.-picked Governing Council, Adnan Pachachi, to condemn the U.S. assault on the city, which for some Iraqis has become a symbol of resistance.
"These operations were a mass punishment for the people of Fallujah," Pachachi 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."
The heavy fighting for Fallujah was prompted by the March 31 slaying of four U.S. civilians in the city. Their burned bodies were mutilated and dragged through the streets by a mob that hung two of them from a bridge.
A Marine died Thursday in Fallujah, bringing the U.S. death toll across Iraq this week to 40. The fighting also has killed more than 460 Iraqis — including more than 280 in Fallujah, a hospital official said.
The Marines called a halt to offensive operations in Fallujah at noon Friday. Only 90 minutes later, Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, commander of the 1st Battalion 5th Marine Regiment, said he had permission to resume offensive operations.
For hours afterward, there was sporadic shooting. Marines were hunkered down around the city and in an industrial zone just inside, without entering residential neighborhoods. Before the halt was called, there was fighting around a mosque that was the center of battles for three days.
A year to the day after Marines toppled a statue of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in Baghdad's Firdos Square, a poster of Muqtada al-Sadr — the radical Shiite cleric whose militia has rebelled across the south — was attached Friday to an unfinished bronze monument at the site. U.S. soldiers climbed up and tore it down.
The felling of Saddam's statue before a cheering crowd of Iraqis on April 9 was an enduring image of Iraq's liberation.
But on Friday, Baghdad was tense, and a curfew was imposed in Firdos Square, where at least two armored vehicles were parked. At the western entrance to the capital, gunmen freely roamed the main highway, and a burned tanker truck sent a huge pall of smoke over the city.
In the south, U.S. troops drove into Kut, driving out members of al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army militia who seized the textile and farm products center this week. The operation represented a major foray by the American military in a region where U.S. allies have struggled to deal with the uprising.
Al-Sadr forces kept control of Kufa and the center of the nearby holy city of Najaf, despite a vow by U.S. commanders Wednesday to crush the militia.
Any U.S. operation to oust the militiamen would be hampered by the hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims who are in southern cities and roads this weekend for al-Arbaeen, which commemorates the end of the period of mourning for a 7th-century martyred saint.
Al-Sadr on Friday demanded U.S. forces leave Iraq, saying they now face "a civil revolt."
"I direct my speech to my enemy Bush and I tell him that if your excuse was that you are fighting Saddam, then this thing is a past and now you are fighting the entire Iraqi people," al-Sadr said in a sermon, delivered by one of his deputies at the Imam Ali Shrine, Shiite Islam's holiest site, in Najaf.
In Tokyo, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi vowed not to withdraw 530 troops in Iraq despite the seizure of three Japanese civilians. Militants have threatened to kill the three unless the troops leave Iraq. A senior aide to al-Sadr denied his militia was responsible for kidnapping the Japanese.
At least three other foreign civilians are being held captive.
Gunmen on the highway outside Baghdad 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 known.
U.S. troops also came under heavy attack in Muqdadiyah, 55 miles northeast of Baghdad. Up to 80 insurgents ambushed a U.S. patrol late Thursday, prompting an overnight battle. At least three insurgents were killed and up to 20 wounded, said Lt. Col. Peter A. Newell.
It was not clear if negotiations planned Friday between Marines and a delegation of Fallujah clerics, sheiks and other leaders took place or what their purpose was.
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 about a quarter of the city.
The security firm that employed the four Americans who were killed in Fallujah, Blackwater USA, told The New York Times that they were lured into an ambush by members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.
The Iraqis promised the Blackwater-led convoy safe passage through the city, but instead, they suddenly blocked off the road, preventing any escape from waiting gunmen, Patrick Toohey, Blackwater's vice president for government relations said in Friday's editions.
Two senior Pentagon (news - web sites) officials said Thursday that a military inquiry into the slayings was continuing.
In the south, U.S. forces moved into Kut two days after Ukrainian troops abandoned the city in the face of heavy fighting with al-Sadr followers. Before dawn, U.S. troops seized police stations, forcing out both Iraqi police and militiamen and confiscating police weapons stores in the city, witnesses said. There was little resistance.
A U.S. helicopter struck al-Sadr's main office in Kut, killing two people, witnesses said. During the day, Americans were patrolling the streets.
In Najaf, a policeman watched helplessly Thursday as a pickup truck carrying a dozen heavily armed Shiite militiamen went past his police station — already in the militia's hands.
"Look, how can we control such a situation?" he asked an Associated Press reporter.
Police in several cities have abandoned their stations or stood aside as the gunmen took to the streets, raising concerns about the performance and loyalty of a force that U.S. administrators are counting on to keep security in the future Iraq.
Coalition forces also have moved in to block the road between Kufa and Najaf, a senior aide to al-Sadr, Sheik Qays al-Khaz'ali, told the AP.
Al-Sadr, a young, firebrand anti-U.S. cleric, is thought to be holed up in his office in Najaf, protected by scores of gunmen. He has said he is willing to die resisting any U.S. attempt to capture him.
Al-Sadr supporters battled coalition forces in two towns early Friday:
_ Fighting with Polish troops in the southern city of Karbala, scene of battles nearly every night this week, killed four Iraqis and wounded 15 others, according to Karbala General Hospital.
_ Al-Sadr followers attacked a government building where U.S. troops are based in Baqouba, north of Baghdad, after Friday prayers. A tank was seen burning. Also, a mortar hit a house near a police station, killing two people, police said.
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