*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

US forces hit

The journalist said clashes also spread to the western parts of the city including al-Jisrain area. US F-16 fighters also bombed sites in north-east Falluja. Fighters caused some damage to the advancing US forces, hitting two tanks in the north-western area of Saqlawiya and seven oil tankers in Qarma in the north-east.

"An unmanned aircraft was downed in central Falluja and a US military vehicle was burnt behind the new bridge," said al-Dulaimi. Falluja's Shura (consultation) Mujahidin Council called for international intervention to halt the assault. It also called on fighters in other Iraqi cities to go to Falluja's aid.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Sunni group meeting Allawi (sometime today) is threatening, as it did last week, to pull out of the political process if the attack on Fallujah doesn't stop.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US denying a chopper has been shot down.

 

[Barking_Mad]

35 US soldiers captured in Fallujah: mosques

FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- Mosques in Iraq's restive city of Fallujah announced on Monday that the fighters inside the city have captured 35 US soldiers. Loud speakers of the mosques blared out the news as US forces were trying to penetrate the rebel-held city, but the news could not be independently confirmed.

US troops and Iraqi special forces stormed into the western districts of Fallujah early Monday and seized the main city hospital and two key bridges over the Euphrates River. US officials said there may be more fierce fighting to come if US forces try to enter downtown Fallujah on the east bank of the river.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Rebels Kill 45 in Attacks in Iraq's Baquba

BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - Insurgent attacks and clashes killed 45 people in the Iraqi city of Baquba on Tuesday, a hospital morgue official said. Guerrillas attacked three police stations and a river bridge in the city, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad, and fought gunbattles with Iraqi police and National Guards. The attacks came as U.S.-led forces were storming into the rebel stronghold of Falluja, west of Baghdad. Ahmed Fuad, in charge of the main morgue in Baquba, capital of Diyala province, said 32 people had been wounded, in addition to the 45 bodies he had received.

"We have taken back the labor union building from the insurgents and we are regaining control of the city," police Major Mohammed Ghani told reporters. Fuad said 25 policemen were killed when gunmen attacked the Tahrir and Mafraq police stations in Baquba. Another 20 bodies had come in after a similar attack on a police station in Buhriz, a village just south of Baquba, he said. Gunmen attacked a Diyala river bridge on a road linking Baquba with the northeastern towns of Miqdadiya and Khanaqin. They distributed leaflets warning people in Baquba to stay away from government offices and schools.

13 killed in hospital car bomb

AT least 13 people were killed and about 60 injured when a car bomb exploded outside the emergency unit of one of Baghdad's main hospitals, medical officials said today. "We have received nine dead - seven policemen, one nurse amd a member of the personnel department at the hospital as well as 42 injured," Dr Hadi Abdel Karim said at the Yarmuk hospital in the south-west of Baghdad where the attack occurred late yesterday. The capital's City Hospital received another four dead and 14 wounded, a doctor there said.

Scores of cars were destroyed when a stolen police car laden with explosives exploded outside Yarmuk, severely damaging the front of the emergency unit. Just hours early, the hospital had taken in three dead and 45 wounded after suspected car bombs exploded minutes apart outside two churches in Baghdad.

Sunni political party says it's quitting interim Iraqi government

BAGHDAD, Iraq A major Sunni political party is pulling out of the interim Iraqi government in protest over the assault on Fallujah. It has decided that its one minister in the Cabinet should quit. The head of the Iraqi Islamic Party tells The Associated Press "We cannot be part of this attack." He calls it an injustice on the innocent people of the city. The party has significant influence over the country's Sunni community and its withdrawal from the government will likely be a blow to Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. It is the Iraqi branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a moderate Sunni Islamic party well established in the Middle East. The party was suppressed under Saddam Hussein's rule and returned to life after Saddam was toppled.

 

[richtea]

Iraq PM imposes night curfew on Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on Tuesday imposed a night curfew on Baghdad for an indefinite period, a statement from his office said.

It said the curfew would be in force from 10:30 p.m. (1930 GMT) to 4 a.m. (0100 GMT) with immediate effect.

 

[Groucho]

Ramadi has risen and US troops have been forced to withdraw. Ramadi is now in the hands of the resistance.

- BBC News 24

 

[Barking_Mad]

The BBC has reporters logs here. Worth the read....... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3992137.stm

The US soldiers have been gearing up for this for a long time. They seem almost excited to be getting there - some were preparing by listening to heavy metal music and one soldier told me it made it seem a bit more like a video game.

 

[richtea]

Iraqi insurgents seize centre of Ramadi

First Published 2004-11-09, Last Updated 2004-11-09 13:47:53

Middle East Online

Insurgents jubilate in centre of Ramadi as US snipers withdraw from their positions following 24 hours of clashes.

RAMADI, Iraq - Rebel fighters massed in the centre of the restive Iraqi city of Ramadi Tuesday after US military snipers withdrew from their positions following 24 hours of clashes, an AFP correspondent said.

The US military could not immediately be contacted for comment.

US snipers left a hotel from where they were able to control most of Ramadi's main roads, but the military remained in its headquarters in the governor's office nearby, the correspondent said.

Other US soldiers left the city for their bases in the east and west of the city.

As the snipers departed, large crowds of armed insurgents, their faces hidden by scarves, began dancing in the street and shooting in to the air, yelling "Allah Akbar" (God is great).

Banners proclaiming solidarity with insurgents in Fallujah, where US-led forces launched a massive offensive to retake the city on Monday, were hung in the streets.

"The residents of Ramadi condemn the attack against Fallujah and we appeal to the inhabitants of Ramadi to wage jihad against the American occupants who want to eradicate Islam," said one man who did not want to be named.

Seven Iraqis were killed and 24 were injured during the previous day's fighting, said Dr Saad Dulaimi at Ramadi's main hospital, although he said it was unclear how many of the casualties were insurgents.

 

[Barking_Mad]

...........

 

[Barking_Mad]

U.S.-Led Forces Hold Central Falluja - Residents Edited down from original

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - Fighting eased in Falluja on Tuesday after U.S. forces reached its center and consolidated positions there, less than a day after starting an offensive to tame Iraq's most rebellious city. Residents said the sound of bombardment and explosions eased off around 4:15 p.m. after a night and day of intense fighting between U.S.-led forces and insurgents. An American soldier wounded in Falluja said he had seen two of his colleagues killed.

"A buddy of mine and another soldier were killed and I have seen about 50 other wounded (U.S.) soldiers since the fighting began," he told Reuters while awaiting medical evacuation. He declined to give his name. A Reuters reporter saw about five wounded soldiers being flown out by helicopter and a U.S. military ambulance driver also said he had witnessed many casualties....The military has given no figures for U.S. casualties since the assault on Falluja began on Monday evening.

There has also been no word on civilian casualties, though Falluja residents said a U.S. air strike hit a clinic in a central district, killing some medical staff and patients. Residents said they had no power and used kerosene lamps at night. They kept to ground floors for safety. Telephones were erratic. Even food shops had been closed for six days. Iraqi troops brought nine handcuffed prisoners to a railway station on the northern edge of the Jolan area where U.S. and Iraqi forces are based. They said two of them were Egyptians and one was Syrian. The rest were Iraqis.

Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor at the main Falluja hospital who escaped arrest when it was taken, said the city was running out of medical supplies and only a few clinics remained open. "There is not a single surgeon in Falluja. We had one ambulance hit by U.S. fire and a doctor wounded. There are scores of injured civilians in their homes whom we can't move. "A 13-year-old child just died in my hands," he said by telephone from a house where he had gone to help the wounded.

 

[Barking_Mad]

U-S military deaths rise

NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq A total of 14 Americans have been killed in the past two days across Iraq -- including five in and around Fallujah. Nine others have died as guerrillas launched a wave of attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere. A senior Pentagon official says the nine others died yesterday southwest of Fallujah and in Baghdad. Iraq's interim prime minister has declared a nighttime curfew in Baghdad and its surroundings. This, a day after a string of insurgent attacks in Baghdad that killed nine Iraqis and wounded more than 80.

 

[Barking_Mad]

...........

Mortar attack kills two U.S. troops in Mosul
BAGHDAD, Nov 9 (Reuters) Two U S soldiers were killed when insurgents fired mortar bombs at their base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul today, the U S military said in a statement. One soldier died on the scene and the second died later from wounds suffered in the attack. No further details were available. With the latest deaths, 874 U.S. soldiers have been killed in action in Iraq and 1,135 have died in combat or due to accidents or other causes.

Saboteurs attack north Iraq pipeline
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saboteurs have blown up an oil pipeline in northern Iraq, as attacks against the country's oil infrastructure intensified following a two-month lull. Reuters Television footage showed a pipeline burning near the village of Safa, 70 km (44 miles) southwest of Kirkuk. The Iraq-Turkey pipeline and lines feeding it run through the area.

Sunni party quits interim government
Iraq's official Sunni Muslim political party has quit the US-backed government in protest over the assault on Falluja. A spokesman for the Islamic Party, Iyad Samarai, said top party officials had met earlier in the day with Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to demand he stop the Falluja offensive and try to negotiate a peaceful settlement with fighters there. When the talks failed, the party saw no justification to remain a part of the interim government and subsequently quit. The party's only member to hold a ministerial post abandoned the group, however, to keep his government position. "The Islamic Party made the decision to withdraw from the government because of the military offensive in Falluja, but I don't share this opinion and decided to quit the party and remain in my post," said Minister of Industry Hashim Al-Hassani. "To withdraw would not serve the interests of the Iraqi people."

 

[Barking_Mad]

“What About Fallujah Evacuees?” Iraqis Wonder

Abu Said from Fallujah said that his mother asked him to find a temporary residence place out of Fallujah till the end of the current crisis. He discovered that renting a flat costs a fortune. “We found a flat with enough rooms to the whole family but costs 500.000 Iraqi Dinars [equivalent to US $325] in addition a six-month advance rental,” he added. Abu Said added that due to the soaring prices, “I preferred to stay at home under the US random shelling.”

 

[Barking_Mad]

Resistance over Fallujah Builds Up in Baghdad

Hamad Abdulla Raziz, an unemployed electrician doing odd jobs at a hotel in central Baghdad said the U.S.-led coalition fails to see that ”we are having now to fight for our liberation against them.” Many people in Baghdad express concern that the U.S. military operations in Fallujah are already leading to increasing violence around the country. Ibrahim Mikhail who drives his car as a taxi now because he is afraid to join the Iraqi police force believes that if the U.S. military would stay in their bases there would be less violence.

”Why can't the U.S. Army leave our cities,” he said. ”If their tanks will stay off our streets and the soldiers will stop raiding our homes, people would stop attacking them, especially Fallujans.” U.S. forces say al-Zarqawi is in Fallujah, ”but Fallujans and now more people in Baghdad view the Americans as terrorists,” he said.

”An Americans attack on Fallujah will be a disaster,” said Haydr Raid, a 22-year-old college student at Baghdad University. ”To try to rescue the people of Fallujah from the Arab mujahideen, it is okay then to kill the civilians with the fighters?” he asked. ”The Americans won't let men out of the city who want out, so they will kill them with the fighters? Is this justice?”

 

[bigfish]

The Boston Globe reports:

http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=7575

American officials have grossly inflated the role of Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the violence in Iraq in their eagerness to blame foreign terrorists for the insurgency, according to Jordanian analysts and Western diplomats, who say Zarqawi’s group is just one of many factions and that Zarqawi’s capability and ties to Osama bin Laden have been exaggerated. “The bottom line is that America needs to create a serious public enemy who is not Iraqi so they can claim Iraqis aren’t responsible for the resistance,” said Labib Kamhawi, a Jordanian political analyst who regularly meets with Iraqi government leaders as well as opposition militants. A Western diplomat familiar with evidence against Zarqawi said the US government often paints terrorist activity in Iraq and Jordan with a broad brush, attributing the activities of a disparate array of terror groups and individual operatives to the “Zarqawi network.”

Last week, one fighter, a 37-year-old Jordanian named Hamad Saleh told an Iraqi reporter that he had abandoned his work as a truck driver to join the Iraqi resistance four months ago. But he said he loathed Zarqawi and his organization. Their fundamentalism and “un-Islamic” tactics, including suicide bombings and beheading hostages, Saleh said, had tainted the reputation of fighters who had come to Iraq to join conventional battle against US forces. “You should distinguish between Tawhid and Jihad, which ruined the reputation of the resistance, and those of us Arab fighters who answered Iraq’s call for help,” Saleh said. “We have nothing to do with Al Qaeda or Zarqawi.”

 

[Barking_Mad]

Updates

U-S military deaths rise
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq A total of 14 Americans have been killed in the past two days across Iraq -- including five in and around Fallujah. Nine others have died as guerrillas launched a wave of attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere.

A senior Pentagon official says the nine others died yesterday southwest of Fallujah and in Baghdad. Iraq's interim prime minister has declared a nighttime curfew in Baghdad and its surroundings. This, a day after a string of insurgent attacks in Baghdad that killed nine Iraqis and wounded more than 80.


Pentagon: Six U.S. troops killed
FALLUJA, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. and Iraqi troops reached the heart of Falluja on Tuesday as the second day of battles continued in the militant-controlled city west of Baghdad. The Pentagon reported six U.S. troops were killed in the fighting and 10 wounded.


Hospital hit as fighting rages in Falluja

Warplanes have bombed a government clinic in the centre of Falluja as US ground forces engaged in pitched battles with fighters defending the city. Residents said the one-storey Popular Clinic which had been receiving wounded anti-US fighters and civilians was hit overnight as US-led forces pressed into the city. The residents said on Tuesday it was impossible to reach the clinic because of heavy bombing and US tanks in the area. The clinic's telephones were no longer working.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Most definately worth the read.

'Watching tragedy engulf my city'

US and Iraqi forces are locked in desperate street battles against insurgents in the Iraqi city of Falluja. The BBC News website spoke by phone to Fadhil Badrani, a journalist in Falluja who reports for the BBC World Service in Arabic.

I am surrounded by thick black smoke and the smell of burning oil. There was a big explosion a few minutes ago and now I can hear gunfire. A US armoured vehicle has been parked on the street outside my house in the centre of the city. From my window, I can see US soldiers moving around on foot near it. They tried to go from house to house but they kept coming under fire. Now they are firing back at the houses, at anything that moves. It is war on the streets. The American troops look like they have given up trying to go into buildings for now and are just trying to control the main roads.

I am sitting here on my own, watching tragedy engulf my city. I was with some of the Falluja fighters earlier. They looked tired - but their spirits were high and they were singing. Local fighters have reportedly been joined by Iraqis from other cities Recently, many Iraqis from other parts of the country have been joining the local men against the Americans.

No one has had much sleep in the past two days of heavy fighting and of course, it is still Ramadan, so no one eats during the day. I cannot say how many people have been killed but after two days of bombing, this city looks like Kabul. Large portions of it have been destroyed but it is so dangerous to leave the house that I have not been able to find out more about casualties.

A medical dispensary in the city centre was bombed earlier. I don't know what has happened to the doctors and patients who were there. It was last place you could get medical attention because the big hospital on the outskirts of Falluja was captured by the Americans on Monday.

A lot of the mosques have also been bombed. For the first time in Falluja, a city of 150 mosques, I did not hear a single call to prayer this morning. I broke my Ramadan fast yesterday with the last of our food - two potatoes and two tomatoes. The tomatoes were rotten because we have no electricity to run the fridge. My neighbours - a woman and her children - came to see me yesterday. They asked me to tell the world what is happening here.

I look at the devastation around me and ask - why?

Iraqi man buries his brother in Falluja

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I missed this somehow:

A Nepalese diplomat confirmed the deaths hours after images were put on a website, apparently showing one man being beheaded and 11 being shot dead.

Nepal's ambassador to Qatar, Shyamanand Suman, said it was one of the "worst days" in his country's history.

The militants said the 12 Nepalis had been killed because they "came from their country to fight the Muslims and to serve the Jews and the Christians".

Many foreigners have been captured in Iraq and some have been killed, but this is by far the largest killing of hostages.




The 12 Nepalese citizens are thought to have travelled to the Middle East to earn money as cooks and cleaners.





Elsewhere, the men's families were grief-stricken.

"What sins have I committed to deserve this?" Jit Bahadur Khadka, father of hostage Ramesh, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency in Kathmandu.

His wife Radha fainted at the news.

Villagers crowded round the family home in Lele, 20km (12 miles) south of Kathmandu, where the 19-year-old hostage had lived, to console them.

"We were expecting their safe return. This is very shocking. This is completely unexpected," said Sudarshan Khadka, Ramesh's brother.

Nepal said it had tried to make contact with the hostage-takers.

Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat said the killings came as a shock because "there were no demands or deadlines."

He said he had stressed that Nepal was not part of the US-led coalition in Iraq.

"I repeatedly conveyed the message that these people have nothing to do with the Americans," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3614866.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

*sigh* more innocently needlessly slaughtered.

 

[Gumbert]

'Scores of civilians' killed in Falluja

Muhammad Abbud said he watched his nine-year-old son bleed to death at their Falluja home, unable to take him to hospital as fighting raged in the streets and bombs rained down on the Iraqi city.

In the midst of a US onslaught and hemmed in by a round-the-clock curfew, he said he had little choice but to bury his eldest son, Ghaith, in the garden.

"My son got shrapnel in his stomach when our house was hit at dawn, but we couldn't take him for treatment," said Abbud, a teacher. "We buried him in the garden because it was too dangerous to go out. We did not know how long the fighting would last."

Residents say scores of civilians have been killed or wounded in 24 hours of fighting since US-led forces pushed deep into the city on Monday evening.

Doctors said people brought in at least 15 dead civilians at the main clinic in Falluja on Monday. By Tuesday, there were no clinics open, residents said, and no way to count casualties.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/813419D5-CC95-4505-9367-05140111C618.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

BBC Radio reporting that Allawi's cousin has been captured in Baghdad.

There's also a report that 200 Iraqi troops who were involved in the Fallujah offensive deserted their posts.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US casualty list reports so far that 10 troops were killed over the last 2 days - only two of these have been identified as dying in Fallujah itself and both of those are listed as dying as a result of non-hostile fire (over-turned bulldozer).

http://www.icasualties.org/oif/prdDetails.aspx?hndRef=11-2004

edit - right on cue a report says

US troops counting Fallujah casualties

Baghdad - Ten US service members and two Iraqi government troopers have been killed in the operation to capture Fallujah, the US military has said.

A brief statement said that as of 6:30pm on Tuesday at local time, the 10 Americans and two Iraqis had been killed "in Operation Al Fajr."

"Due to operational security in order to prevent the anti-Iraqi forces and other terrorist elements from gaining useful battlefield intelligence, there could be delays in announcements of battlefield casualties," the statement said.

The statement gave no details of where and how the troops had been killed and whether some of them may have been among the 11 US deaths reported by the Pentagon earlier in the day.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Fallujah refugee situation 'dire'

THOUSANDS of Iraqis who fled fighting in Fallujah have been without enough food and water for days, the International Committee of the Red Cross said today. "There are thousands of elderly, women and children who need aid, including water, food, medical care and shelter," Red Cross spokesman Ahmad al-Raoui said.

"They must be allowed to return home as soon as possible." He said the refugees were concentrated in the villages of Habbaniya, Amiriya and Saqlawiya, where there were an estimated 20,000 people alone. "We don't have exact figures. The last time we managed to reach the refugees was Thursday," said Mr Raoui.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Bombs kill six Iraqi national guards, US soldier

Six Iraqi national guards were killed when two roadside bombs exploded minutes apart in northern Iraq, an Iraqi official said. "A roadside bomb exploded at 7:45 am in the path of a national guard patrol in Tuz, destroying a vehicle and killing four of its occupants," said national guard general, Anuar Mohammad, noting that a commander was among the victims.

Twenty minutes later, a second bomb exploded near a patrol that had been dispatched to the scene of the first blast, killing two, Mr Mohammad said. One US soldier was killed and another injured when their armoured patrol struck a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, the US military said.

"A 1st Infantry Division soldier was killed and one injured after their combat patrol was struck by an improvised explosive device near Balad at about 4:20 am," it said in a statement.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Syria denounces Fallujah strikes

A SYRIAN government newspaper today denounced the US-led attack on the Iraqi city of Fallujah as "a terrible humanitarian massacre".Tishrin newspaper, in an editorial, said the attack on Fallujah would increase violence in Iraq and further complicate the security situation ahead of an international conference on reconstruction later this month at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik.

"The brutal bombardment and inhuman crimes in Iraq, especially in Fallujah, will increase violence and destroy all chances to make the Sharm el-Sheik conference a success," the editorial said. On Monday, about 10,000 US Marines, Army soldiers and Iraqi forces, backed by air and artillery power, began their long-awaited assault on Fallujah, the stronghold of militants blamed for bombings, beheadings and kidnappings targeting foreigners in Iraq.

Cook: US assault on Fallujah will be strategic failure

Former British FM says US military operation in Fallujah will increase resistance, decrease support for coalition troops. The US assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah will be a tactical success but strategic failure, increasing the resistance to the occupation of Iraq, former minister Robin Cook said Wednesday.

"What has happened in Fallujah is in many ways an example of what has happened across Iraq," Cook told the BBC. "The resistance has escalated with the heavy-handed military tactics."

"This operation will increase the resistance again and decrease the support for our presence within Iraq," Cook said. "This really has got to be the end of the strategy of trying to pacify Iraq by bombing it." The city, which is in the Sunni Muslim heartland west of Baghdad, did not resist the occupation in the first month after US and British forces toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in April 2003, Cook said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

An interesting read on the people in Fallujah, once you get past the headline and the Monty Pythonesque first snippet.......

'We are not here to liberate Iraq, we're here to fight the infidels'

In the front yard of a half-built house in Falluja, a dozen fighters sat in a semicircle. With Kalashnikovs in their laps and copies of the Qur'an in their hands, they stared at us suspiciously. The silence was punctuated by the sound of mortar shelling. With each explosion, the fighters would cry, "Allahu Akbar". Eventually, the mujahideen started talking: "Who are you?" "What do you do?" "Why the big cameras?" But mostly they were interested only in converting us to Islam. They were still describing the pains I would go through in hell when another fighter, a short thin teenager, appeared. He was still dressed in his white pyjamas and rubbed his eyes as he listened to the conversation.

"What are you doing?" he asked one of the fighters.

"We are preaching to them about Islam," said the fighter.

"Why? They are not Muslims?"

"No."

The young man looked with puzzlement at the other fighter and said: "But then, why don't we kill them?"

"We can't do that now. They are in a state of truce with us," the fighter said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Battle rages in centre of Falluja

Rebels set an oil pipeline on fire outside Falluja overnight. US marines have taken the mayor's office in central Falluja and say they now control 70% of the Iraqi city with rebels hemmed into a narrow strip. Reporting from the mayoral compound, the BBC's Paul Wood says a battle is still raging in the city centre while US-led forces control the perimeter.

According to US estimates, hundreds of rebels were killed on Wednesday alone and at least one more marine died. Our correspondent said that on Wednesday morning no civilians could be seen on the streets, shops were shuttered and black smoke was rising all around. Fadhil Badrani, a journalist in Falluja who reports for the BBC World Service in Arabic, says the city now looks like Kabul, the Afghan capital largely reduced to rubble after years of warfare.

One marine officer, Maj Francis Piccoli, said the rebels had been squeezed into a strip of the city bordering the east-west motorway which splits Falluja. "There's going to be a movement today in those areas," he added.

According to marines, the rebels waved a white flag at one stage but opened fire from three directions when a marine interpreter tried to begin talks. The marines then called in air strikes. Other marines reported intense exchanges of fire in a north-western district. One marine was killed and several seriously injured, bringing the death toll to 11 Americans and two Iraqi government soldiers. "As for casualties on the insurgents' side, I can tell you that they are dying," marine spokesman Lt Lyle Gilbert told AFP news agency.

Militants launch sustained gun and rocket attacks in Mosul as US aircraft fly low above the northern city

In Washington, President George W Bush praised the US-led forces in Falluja for their "hard work... for a free Iraq". However, Iraq's largest Sunni-led political party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, pulled out of the interim government in protest at the Falluja assault. The main association of Sunni clerics also voiced its disapproval, calling for a boycott of elections due in January. Neighbouring Iran also voiced serious concern over Iraqi losses in Falluja.

Aid agencies have highlighted the plight of civilians in Falluja where up to 50,000 people remain out of a pre-war population of 300,000.

The Red Cross has urged all combatants to guarantee passage to those in need of medical care. Paul Wood notes that despite efforts by US forces to select targets carefully, their use of heavy artillery and tanks is bound to lead to civilian casualties. An unnamed man claiming to be a rebel fighter told the BBC's Today programme that the destruction in Falluja was "total".

"The Americans are bombing everywhere - everything is destroyed," he said, adding that water and electricity had been cut off." The assault on Falluja, a hotbed of Sunni resistance, is officially aimed at stabilising Iraq ahead of January's poll.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Updates...

Clashes erupt in northern Iraqi city of Mosul
MOSUL, Iraq, Nov 10 (Reuters) Gunfire and explosions echoed across the northern Iraqi city of Mosul today, but it was not immediately clear who the combatants were. A Reuters reporter said residents were staying indoors as small-arms fire rattled and blasts from rocket-propelled grenades shook the city. U.S. helicopters flew overhead.Urgent: 11 US soldiers killed in Falluja: US military

US Military give 'casualty totals'
BAGHDAD, Nov. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- The US military confirmed on Wednesday that 11 US soldiers and two Iraqis have been killed so far after the Americans launched military operation on Iraq's Falluja

Marines tighten grip in Falluja
US marines today said that they had taken control of 70% of Falluja in the third day of a major offensive to retake the insurgent stronghold.

 

[Barking_Mad]

From the BBC main page.......

Fadhil Badrani told the BBC News website that the battle was particularly fierce in the district of Jolan, just north of the centre.

He said he had seen the bodies of eight US soldiers lying in the streets of the city's Hammaniyya area overnight, along with the remains of many dead rebels. He had also found two disabled US tanks and three destroyed Humvee jeeps.

The journalist added that rebels were moving from street to street, attacking US troops where they could and letting them pass where they could not.

He said he doubted the truth of US claims that marines were in control of 70% of the city.

The US military's total death toll for the Falluja operation rose to 11 Americans and two Iraqi government soldiers on Wednesday. On Tuesday evening, it was saying 10 Americans.