- FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) -- Gunmen
battered American supply lines Monday, torching armored vehicles and looting
a supply truck on its way from the Baghdad airport. The military said about
70 Americans and 700 insurgents had been killed this month, the bloodiest
since the fall of Baghdad a year ago.
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- Two U.S. soldiers and seven employees of a U.S. contractor
were still missing after an attack on a convoy west of Baghdad, Lt. Gen.
Ricardo Sanchez said Monday. A wave of kidnappings continued with the capture
of seven Chinese and two Czech civilians.
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- In the south, the military said it had the cities of
Kut, Nasiriyah and Hillah under control - but followers of radical Shiite
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr still held Najaf and parts of Karbala.
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- Sanchez said he did not know where al-Sadr was, but he
was last known to be in Najaf.
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- "The mission of U.S. forces is to kill or capture
Muqtada al-Sadr. That is our mission," Sanchez said.
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- A tenuous cease-fire was holding in Fallujah, but more
U.S. forces maneuvered into place around the city, and commanders said
they were not yet ready to negotiate with the insurgents.
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- Fallujah, and the military has warned it will launch
an all-out assault on the besieged city if talks there between pro-U.S.
Iraqi politicians and city officials fall through.
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- The military has been trying to regain control of supply
routes after several convoys were ambushed and at least 10 truck drivers
kidnapped. Nine were released, but an American - Thomas Hamill of Macon,
Miss. - remained a captive.
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- On Monday, a convoy of flatbed trucks carrying M113 armored
personnel carriers was attacked and burned on a road in Latifiya, 20 miles
south of Baghdad. Witnesses said three people were killed.
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- A supply truck was also ambushed and set ablaze Monday
on the road from Baghdad's airport. Looters moved in to carry away goods
from the truck as Iraqi police looked on without intervening.
-
- An attack on a convoy Sunday killed a Romanian working
for a security company, Romania's ambassador to Iraq said. Two German security
guards were killed on a highway last week, prompting Germany to urge all
of its citizens to leave Iraq on Monday.
-
- Securing roads has now become a top priority for the
military, U.S. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Monday.
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- "Over the past 24 hours we have put significant
amount of combat power on both areas of operation to open up those lines
of communication so we can not only resupply our forces in Fallujah, Ramadi
and our forces down south, but also make those roads safe for travel,"
Kimmit said.
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- "They're at a condition that we would call amber;
it is certainly not green yet," he said.
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- Three U.S. Marines were killed Sunday in Anbar province,
the area that includes Fallujah, the military said Monday without giving
further details. An attack on an Army patrol in Samarra, 60 miles north
of Baghdad, killed a soldier from the 1st Armored Division and injured
four others on Sunday.
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- Kimmitt on Monday released the first full casualty statistics
since widespread fighting erupted on April 4.
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- "The coalition casualties since April 1 run about
70 personnel. ... The casualty figures we have received from the enemy
are somewhere about 10 times that amount, what we've inflicted on the enemy,"
he told a Baghdad press conference.
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- About 600 Iraqi dead, mostly civilians, were recorded
by the main hospital and four clinics in Fallujah, hospital director Rafie
al-Issawi told The Associated Press.
-
- In all, about 880 Iraqis have been killed, according
to an AP count, based on statements by Iraqi hospital officials, U.S. military
statements and Iraqi police.
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- President Bush prepared Americans for the possibility
of more U.S. casualties.
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- "It was a tough week last week and my prayers and
thoughts are with those who pay the ultimate price for our security,"
Bush said.
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- Marines on Sunday investigated a bomb-making factory
first uncovered three days earlier. Along with five suicide belts found
in the initial raid, they uncovered U.S. military uniforms - suggesting
suicide bombers may try to get close to American forces, Lt. Col. Brennan
Byrne said.
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- Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, acknowledged
that a battalion of the Iraqi army refused to fight in Fallujah - a sign
of Iraqi discontent with the siege.
-
- Asked about the battalion's refusal on NBC's "Meet
The Press," Sanchez said, "This one specific instance did in
fact uncover some significant challenges in some of the Iraqi security
force structures ... We know that it's going to take us a while to stand
up reliable forces that can accept responsibility."
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- Some 900 members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps are
with three battalions of Marines. U.S. forces on Sunday examined a captured
insurgent cache of suicide belts - raising concerns of a deadly new tactic
in the city's fighting.
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- Bush held out hope for the Fallujah talks, saying the
United States was "open to suggestions" on reducing the violence.
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- Meanwhile, a rash of kidnappings continued. Seven Chinese
civilians were abducted by insurgents in central Iraq Sunday evening, China's
government said. On Monday, Beijing urged Iraq's leaders to help free the
hostages.
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- In the last week, militants have kidnapped more than
30 civilians from at least 12 countries.
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- Still unknown was the fate of an American hostage, Thomas
Hamill, whose captors threatened to kill him unless the Marines withdraw
from Fallujah by early Sunday. Other insurgents promised to release three
Japanese by Sunday, but the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad said Monday they
had not been freed.
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- In the south, members of the Iraqi Governing Council
have reportedly held talks with followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr. His militia raised a bloody revolt last week and still controls
three holy cities, Karbala, Kufa and Najaf.
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- One factor that has held off U.S. action to uproot al-Sadr's
al-Mahdi Army militia was the presence of up to 1.5 million Shiite pilgrims
in Karbala, for Sunday's al-Arbaeen ceremonies, one of the holiest days
of the Shiite religious calendar. Most pilgrims had left the city by Monday
morning.
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- U.S. coalition spokesman Dan Senor would not comment
on Iraqi talks with al-Sadr's followers but said, "I would say that
our goal is to minimize bloodshed and to head off any sort of conflict."
-
- "We don't see it as a necessary requirement that
any military action has to occur in Najaf," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt
told reporters.
-
- The goal of the separate talks in Fallujah and the south
- all conducted by Iraqis, with no Americans participating - was unclear.
U.S. commanders demand that control of Iraqi police and U.S.-led coalition
forces in the cities be restored and that insurgents in Fallujah lay down
their arms and hand over Iraqis who killed and mutilated four American
civilians on March 31.
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- Iraqi Governing Council members, who have harshly criticized
the U.S. offensive, are seeking a way to extend the truce and resolve the
violence.
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- U.S. troops retook the city of Kut from al-Sadr followers
in the past three days, in the first major foray in months by the American
military into southern Iraq. But military action to retake the other cities
could require fighting near some of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines, raising
the possibility of inflaming Shiite anger at the U.S.-led occupation.
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- In Fallujah, hardly a shot was heard Monday morning,
more than 36 hours after insurgents in the city said they were calling
a cease-fire. The Marines have halted offensive operations since Friday.
-
- Despite the truce, guerrillas overnight made sporadic
attacks, said Byrne. Marines killed two insurgents setting up a machine
gun near a patrol and others were fired on by gunmen hiding in a school,
he said.
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- The bodies of 11 Iraqis were seen brought to a makeshift
clinic in a city mosque Sunday.
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- Byrne said U.S. Marines would not withdraw from their
positions in Fallujah. "Diplomacy is just talk unless you have a credible
force to back it up," he said. "People will bend to our will
if they are afraid of us."
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- Most of the Iraqis killed in Fallujah in fighting that
started last Monday were women, children and elderly, said al-Issawi, the
Fallujah hospital director.
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- Byrne cast doubt on the numbers and said he was confident
troops in his 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment had not killed any civilians.
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- "Just because (the Iraqis) say it's so, doesn't
meant it's so," he said.
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- Fallujah residents took advantage of the lull in fighting
to bury their dead in two soccer fields. One of the fields, seen by an
AP reporter had rows of freshly dug graves, some marked on headstones as
children or with the names of women. A gravedigger at the site said more
than 300 people were buried there.
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- - AP correspondents Daniel Cooney in Baghdad and Bassem
Mroue with Marines at Fallujah contributed to this report.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3969147,00.html
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