Updated: 09:12 PM EST
U.S. Troops Complete Fallujah Occupation
Iraqi Official Says 1,000 Rebels Killed, 200 Captured During Operation
By JIM KRANE, AP
FALLUJAH, Iraq (Nov. 13) - U.S. military officials said Saturday that American
troops had now "occupied'' the entire city of Fallujah and there were no more
major concentrations of insurgents still fighting after nearly a week of
intense urban combat.
A U.S. officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Fallujah was "occupied
but not subdued.'' Artillery and airstrikes also were halted after nightfall to
prevent mistaken attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces who had taken up positions
throughout the city.
Iraqi officials declared the operation to free Fallujah of militants was
"accomplished'' but acknowledged the two most wanted figures in the city -
Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Sheik Abdullah al-Janabi -
had escaped.
U.S. officers said, however, that resistance had not been entirely subdued and
that it still could take several days of fighting to clear the final pockets.
The offensive against Fallujah killed at least 24 American troops and an
estimated 1,000 insurgents, and rebel attacks elsewhere - especially in the
northern city of Mosul - have forced the Americans to shift troops away from
Fallujah.
Exploiting the redeployment, insurgents stepped up attacks in areas outside
Fallujah, including a bombing that killed two Marines on the outskirts of the
former rebel bastion 40 miles west of Baghdad.
Military activity also surged along the Euphrates River valley well to the
north and west of Baghdad, with clashes reported in Qaim on the Syrian border
and in Hit and Ramadi, nearer to the capital.
A series of thunderous explosions rocked central Baghdad after sunset Saturday,
and sirens wailed in the fortified Green Zone, which houses major Iraqi
government offices and the U.S. Embassy. There was no immediate explanation for
the blasts, but the Ansar al-Sunnah Army later claimed responsibility for
firing several rockets at the zone. The claim's authenticity could not be
verified.
A car bomb exploded on the main road to Baghdad airport, and there was fighting
near the Education Ministry in the heart of the capital.
Insurgents also attacked a military base outside Baghdad Saturday, killing one
coalition soldier and wounding three others, the U.S. military said. The
nationalities of the casualties weren't immediately available.
Baghdad's international airport was ordered Saturday to remain closed to
civilian traffic for a further 24 hours, according to government adviser
Georges Sada.
The airport was closed for 48 hours under the state of emergency imposed last
Sunday and has remained shut under a series of one-day extensions ever since.
At least four people were killed and 29 wounded, police said, during a U.S.
airstrike on rebels and clashes Saturday in the Abu Ghraib suburb of western
Baghdad. One Iraqi was killed and 10 wounded in fighting between U.S. troops
and insurgents in the northern city of Tal Afar.
Flames of fire and heavy black smoke were billowing to the sky after saboteurs
attacked an oil pipeline north of Baghdad Saturday night, witnesses said.
The oil pipeline carries crude oil from Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, to the
Dora refinery in Baghdad.
Witnesses said insurgents have virtually controlled the town of Taji for the
last several days, distributing leaflets warning people not to leave their
houses or open their shops.
The drive against remaining insurgent holdouts in southern Fallujah was aimed
to eradicate the last major concentration of fighters at the end of nearly a
week of air and ground assaults.
"We are just pushing them against the anvil,'' said Col. Michael Formica,
commander of the 1st Cavalry Division's 2nd Brigade. "It's a broad attack
against the entire southern front.''
As a prelude to the Saturday assault, a U.S. warplane dropped a 500-pound bomb
on an insurgent tunnel network in the city, CNN embedded correspondent Jane
Arraf reported.
U.S. and Iraqi forces also have begun moving against insurgent sympathizers
among Iraq's hardline Sunni religious leadership, arresting at least four
prominent clerics and raiding offices of religious groups that had spoken out
against the Fallujah assault.
U.S. officials said they hoped the latest attack would finish off the last
pocket of significant resistance in Fallujah. Next was a planned house-to-house
clearing operation to find boobytraps, weapons and guerrillas still hiding in
the rubble.
In Baghdad, Iraqi National Security Adviser Qassem Dawoud proclaimed the
Fallujah assault - code-name Operation Al-Fajr, or “Dawn'' - was
"accomplished'' except for mopping up “evil pockets which we are dealing with
now.''
"The number of terrorists and Saddam (Hussein) loyalists killed has reached
more than 1,000,'' Dawoud said. "As for the detainees, the number is 200
people.''
However, Dawoud said al-Zarqawi, whose al-Qaida-linked group was responsible
for numerous car-bombings and beheadings of foreign hostages, and the main
Fallujah resistance leader, Sheik al-Janabi "have escaped.'' The United States
has offered a $25 million reward for al-Zarqawi.
As U.S. forces pressed their attacks in southern Fallujah, Marines in the
northern districts were hunting for about a dozen insurgents dressed in Iraqi
National Guard uniforms who were reportedly wandering the city streets.
"Any (Iraqi National Guard) or (Iraqi special forces) not seen with the Marines
are to be considered hostile,'' Lt. Owen Boyce, 24, of Simsbury, Conn., told
his men.
U.S. and Iraqi officials want to restore control of Fallujah and other Sunni
militant strongholds before national elections scheduled by Jan. 31.
A four-vehicle convoy of the Iraqi Red Crescent carrying humanitarian
assistance arrived in Fallujah after the Iraqi and American troops allowed it
to pass.
In the southern city of Nasiriyah, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said he
expected the operation in Fallujah to conclude by Sunday with a "clear-cut''
victory over the insurgents and the terrorists.
"We have captured their safe houses, where they killed people,'' Allawi said.
“We have captured the masks they wore when they slaughtered and decapitated
people.''
Allawi, a Shiite Muslim, brushed aside suggestions the operation would create a
backlash among the country's Sunni minority.
“There is no problem of Sunnis or Shiites,'' he said. "This is all Iraqis
against the terrorists. We are going to keep on breaking their back everywhere
in Iraq. We are not going to allow them to win.''
Despite the evident military success in Fallujah, U.S. commanders have warned
that the insurgency in Iraq will continue - evidenced by the recent spike in
violence in the remainder of the Sunni Muslim regions of central Iraq.
The U.S. command withdrew one battalion of the 25th Infantry Division in
Fallujah and returned it to Mosul after insurgents attacked police stations,
bridges and government buildings Thursday in clashes that killed 10 Iraqi
troops and one U.S. soldier.
Mosul was quieter Saturday, but a car bomb exploded as an Iraqi National Guard
convoy sent from Kirkuk passed, witnesses said. Seven National Guardsmen were
wounded.
The region's governor blamed the uprising on "the betrayal of some police
members'' and said National Guard reinforcements - many of them ex-members of
the Kurdish peshmerga militia taken from garrisons along the Syrian and Iranian
borders- had arrived to help end the violence. The events in Mosul cast further
doubt on capabilities of Iraqi forces to maintain order - a key U.S. strategy
goal.
Fierce fighting in Fallujah and elsewhere in Iraq has taken its toll on the
Americans. More than 400 wounded soldiers have been transported to the U.S.
military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, a hospital spokeswoman
said.
Associated Press reporters Edward Harris in Fallujah and Tini Tran, Sameer N.
Yacoub, Mariam Fam, Sabah Jerges, Katarina Kratovac and Maggie Michael in
Baghdad contributed to this report.
11-13-04 14:35 EST
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