- BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military
has used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians
in Fallujah, eyewitnesses report.. "Poisonous gases have been used
in Fallujah," 35-year-old trader from Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS.
"They used everything -- tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah
has been bombed to the ground."
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- Hammad is from the Julan district of Fallujah where some
of the heaviest fighting occurred. Other residents of that area report
the use of illegal weapons.
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- "They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like
a mushroom cloud," Abu Sabah, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan
area told IPS. "Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails
of smoke behind them."
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- He said pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires
that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burns. Phosphorous
weapons as well as napalm are known to cause such effects. "People
suffered so much from these," he said.
- Macabre accounts of killing of civilians are emerging
through the cordon U.S. forces are still maintaining around Fallujah.
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- "Doctors in Fallujah are reporting to me that there
are patients in the hospital there who were forced out by the Americans,"
said Mehdi Abdulla, a 33-year-old ambulance driver at a hospital in Baghdad.
"Some doctors there told me they had a major operation going, but
the soldiers took the doctors away and left the patient to die."
- Kassem Mohammed Ahmed who escaped from Fallujah a little
over a week ago told IPS he witnessed many atrocities committed by U.S.
soldiers in the city.
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- "I watched them roll over wounded people in the
street with tanks," he said. "This happened so many times."
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- Abdul Razaq Ismail who escaped from Fallujah two weeks
back said soldiers had used tanks to pull bodies to the soccer stadium
to be buried. "I saw dead bodies on the ground and nobody could bury
them because of the American snipers," he said. "The Americans
were dropping some of the bodies into the Euphrates near Fallujah."
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- Abu Hammad said he saw people attempt to swim across
the Euphrates to escape the siege. "The Americans shot them with rifles
from the shore," he said. "Even if some of them were holding
a white flag or white clothes over their heads to show they are not fighters,
they were all shot.."
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- Hammad said he had seen elderly women carrying white
flags shot by U.S. soldiers. "Even the wounded people were killed.
The Americans made announcements for people to come to one mosque if they
wanted to leave Fallujah, and even the people who went there carrying white
flags were killed."
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- Another Fallujah resident Khalil (40) told IPS he saw
civilians shot as they held up makeshift white flags. "They shot women
and old men in the streets," he said. "Then they shot anyone
who tried to get their bodies...Fallujah is suffering too much, it is almost
gone now."
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- Refugees had moved to another kind of misery now, he
said. "It's a disaster living here at this camp," Khalil said.
"We are living like dogs and the kids do not have enough clothes."
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- Spokesman for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad Abdel
Hamid Salim told IPS that none of their relief teams had been allowed into
Fallujah, and that the military had said it would be at least two more
weeks before any refugees would be allowed back into the city.
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- "There is still heavy fighting in Fallujah,"
said Salim. "And the Americans won't let us in so we can help people."
- In many camps around Fallujah and throughout Baghdad,
refugees are living without enough food, clothing and shelter. Relief groups
estimate there are at least 15,000 refugee families in temporary shelters
outside Fallujah. (Agencies)
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- http://www.keralanext.com/news/?id=68749
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