- FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) -
U.S. and Iraqi forces hunted rebels in the devastated Iraqi city of Falluja
on Sunday as fighting subsided after a ferocious six-day-old assault.
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- The U.S. military said 38 of its soldiers were killed
and 275 wounded in the week-long battle to capture the city. U.S. forces
have said some 1,000 insurgents were killed and 450 to 550 captured. There
is no word on civilian casualties, but residents say many people have died.
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- Kidnappers who had threatened to kill Prime Minister
Iyad Allawi's cousin, the cousin's wife and their daughter-in-law if he
did not call off the Falluja offensive said they had released the two women,
Al Jazeera television reported.
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- No help has reached civilians in Falluja since the assault
began on Monday and U.S. forces kept a Red Crescent aid convoy of seven
trucks and ambulances waiting at the main hospital near a bridge over the
Euphrates River on the edge of the city.
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- A Reuters correspondent who drove through the city saw
bloated and decomposing bodies in the streets, smashed homes, ruined mosques,
power and telephone lines hanging uselessly.
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- U.S. Marines swept through a last rebel redoubt in a
southern quarter of Falluja that they see as a bastion for foreign fighters
loyal to al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
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- "These are pretty diehard. These people down there
are not sniping or firing, but waiting in their defenses for the Marines
coming to their buildings. That's when they open fire," Marine Colonel
Mike Shupp told Reuters at the hospital.
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- Shupp said he had not heard of any Iraqi civilians being
trapped inside the city and did not think there were any, so the Red Crescent
did not need to deliver aid to civilians there.
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- "There is no need to bring supplies in because we
have supplies of our own for the people. Now that the bridge is open, I
will bring out casualties and all aid work can be done here."
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- "We will wait for permission and we will stay here
tonight," Red Crescent convoy leader Jamal al-Karbouli told Reuters.
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- Allawi, who has vowed to crush a raging insurgency before
elections in January, said Falluja had been cleared of rebels.
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- "Falluja is no longer a safe-haven for terrorists,"
he told Al Iraqiya TV. "No doubt there will also be clean-up operations
for some nests... I don't know how long this will take."
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- He said on Saturday there had been no civilian casualties
-- contradicting accounts from residents inside the city, where intense
violence has halted medical services and made any independent assessment
impossible.
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- "Our situation is very hard," said one resident
contacted by telephone in the central Hay al-Dubat neighborhood. "We
don't have food or water. My seven children all have severe diarrhea.
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- "One of my sons was wounded by shrapnel last night
and he's bleeding, but I can't do anything to help him."
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- "BODIES IN STREET"
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- The man, who gave his name only as Abu Mustafa, said
he had seen U.S. troops and Iraqi national guards in his street as explosions
rang out. "There were bodies lying in the street."
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- Abu Mustafa said he knew of six families nearby in a
similar plight, but then broke down in tears. "We are still fasting,
though it is the Eid (end of Ramadan feast) today. Allahu akbar, Allahu
akbar (God is great)," he sobbed.
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- It is unclear how many of Falluja's 300,000 people remain,
but about half are thought to have fled the fighting.
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- Tank and artillery fire shook Falluja for much of the
day but by nightfall the fighting had died away. More than 10,000 U.S.
and 2,000 Iraqi soldiers took part in the assault to take the city as part
of operations intended to help pacify Iraq for elections due in January.
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- The Falluja offensive has fueled violence across Iraq's
Sunni Muslim heartland, especially in the northern city of Mosul, where
an uprising has left gunmen roaming some districts.
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- Insurgents overran a police station in Mosul on Sunday
and U.S. troops, backed by Iraqi security forces, battled for two hours
to retake it, the U.S. military said.
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- In the refinery city of Baiji, U.S. helicopters fired
missiles at insurgents, and U.S. troops and tanks moved into the city center
after clashing with rebels, witnesses said.
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- (Additional reporting by Luke Baker and Lin Noueihed
in Baghdad, Maher al-Thanoon in Mosul, Sabah al-Bazee in Baiji and Dubai
newsroom)
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- © Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
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