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Reference

Falluja Archive Oct 2004

Falluja Table - April 20

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IBC Extracted Falluja News - April 20

News Source
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Author
-
Title

Associated Press
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9:01 AM (UK)
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LOURDES NAVARRO
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MARINES, INSURGENTS TRAP FALLUJAH FAMILY

Specific incidents / deaths

Outside in the dirt yard is a grave encircled by concrete blocks where Abbas' niece is buried - a makeshift resting place because the family could not get her to the cemetery.

In the first week of fighting, a mortar round fired by insurgents targeting the Americans landed inside the walls of the compound. Shrapnel ripped through the girl's body, killing her and wounding an older child as they were playing on a terrace.

"It's been very difficult to live next to the base where the Americans are, the mortar carried away one child, and hurt another," Abbas said in remarks translated by a U.S. military translator. "We tried to revive her but we couldn't so we wrapped her in a blanket and buried her."

 

Date killed?  
Total 1 (niece of Haji Abbas
Civilian / Fighter

1/0

Cumulative deaths [and injuries]

 

Date range?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Selected info, comment, analysis

Abbas is a prosperous businessman who transports goods in refrigerated trucks to and from Jordan. His brother, the father of the slain girl, is there now on family business and unable to return because of the fighting.

Abbas hasn't told his brother that his daughter has died and asked that the family's full name not be used so that his brother does not find out through the media.

...

But he said the insurgents have wreaked mayhem as well.

"If you speak out against them and they know who you are, they'll attack your home," he said. "I'd like the guerrillas to stop the attacks, but nobody listens to me, I just hang my head and suffer."

Next door, the rumble of heavy military trucks can be heard.

When asked why he hasn't taken his family and fled the city, like almost a third of Fallujah's population, Abbas shrugs.

"We all live here and we will die all here," he said.

US/military viewpoint

News Source
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Author
-
Title
New Standard
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Dahr Jamail
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BAGHDAD DOCTORS REPORT USE OF CLUSTER BOMBS IN FALLUJA; US HARRASSMENT OF PATIENTS

Specific incidents / deaths

He continued, "One of my doctors in Falluja asked the Americans there if he could remove a wounded patient from the city. The soldier wouldn't let him move the victim, and said, 'We have dead soldiers here too. This is a war zone.' The doctor wasn't allowed to remove the wounded man, and he died. So many doctors and ambulances have been turned back from checkpoints there."

This same doctor reported that he saw American soldiers killing women and children, as well as shooting ambulances in Falluja.

Date killed? pre-19th
Total 1
(wounded prevented medical treatment) + 'women and children' seen killed
Civilian / Fighter 1/0
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]  
Date range?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Selected info, comment, analysis

Meanwhile, at the Noman Hospital in Al-Adhamiya, a doctor I spoke with there (who asked to remain nameless) stated, "We are treating an average of one gunshot wound per day, which is something we never saw before the occupation. This is due to the absence of law in Baghdad. The Iraqi Police have weak weapons and nobody respects their authority."

He also stated that U.S. soldiers have come to the hospital asking for information about resistance fighters. He said, "My policy is not to give my patients to the Americans, or to provide them any information. I deny information to the Americans for the sake of the patient. I don't care what my patients have done outside the walls of the hospital. I do my job, then let the patient go."

"Ten days ago this happened -- this occurred after people began to come in from Falluja, even though most of them were children, women and elderly."

When asked if the U.S. military were bombing civilians in Falluja, he stated, "Of course the Americans are bombing civilians, along with the revolutionaries. One year ago there was no revolution in Falluja. But they began searching homes and humiliating people, and this annoyed the people. The people became angry and demonstrated, then the Americans shot the demonstrators, and this started the revolution in Falluja. It is the same in Sadr City."

...

He also believes that cluster bombs are currently being used in Falluja, based on reports from field doctors presently working there, as well as statements taken from wounded civilians of Falluja.

He also claimed that many of the Falluja victims he had treated had been shot with 'dum-dum bullets', which are hollow point bullets that are designed to inflict maximum internal damage. These are also referred to as 'expanding bullets.'

...

He also stated that during the first day of fighting in Sadr City two weeks ago, he received 32 dead bodies, mostly of women and children, and 90 wounded.

...

He continued, "My doctors in Falluja have reported to me that the Americans are using cluster bombs. Patients we've treated from there are reporting the same."

 

US/military viewpoint  
News Source
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Author
-
Title
ReliefWeb
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FALLUJA CRISIS - BABY BORN ON TRUCK AS MOTHER FLEES FALLUJA
Specific incidents / deaths  
Date killed?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]  
Date range?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Selected info, comment, analysis

As violence and terror gripped the besieged town of Falluja in Iraq, Sadiyya, a pregnant mother of two, became increasingly desperate to get her children out to safety.

Doctors and relatives advised the heavily pregnant woman against travelling - but as the bombardment intensified she became determined to leave.

...

"I am too panicked about my children's safety," she told Islamic Relief staff as they helped her onto the back of one of their aid trucks.

The trucks were part of an Islamic Relief aid convoy that had just delivered emergency relief to Falluja. On the return journey the aid trucks were used to evacuate 30 families, mostly women and children, fleeing the violence.

...

Somewhere on the road to Baghdad, baby Mohammed was born and wrapped up snugly in a bright pink blanket.

...

As the truck carrying the new-born baby and 30 families entered Baghdad they were greeted by a crowd of people insisting they stop and inviting all the displaced families to become their guests.

...

Islamic Relief's offices have been flooded with donations of food and medicine from ordinary people in Baghdad eager to share whatever they can spare from the little they own.

US/military viewpoint  
News Source
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Author
-
Title
Agence France-Presse
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1945 hrs Time Is Gmt + 8 Hours
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IRAQI MEDIATOR OPTIMISTIC ABOUT FALLUJAH DEAL
Specific incidents / deaths  
Date killed?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]

More than 600 Iraqis, half of them women, children and elderly people, have been killed in the Fallujah fighting, according to hospital officials. The US military says it is impossible to verify the figure.

Date range? 5th-19th?
Total 600+
Civilian / Fighter 'half of them women, children and elderly people'
Selected info, comment, analysis

Fallujan police will be responsible for probing the March 31 murder of the four contractors, which triggered the US assault on the city, a hotbed of opposition to the occupation of Iraq.

Previously, the coalition had been demanding that those responsible for the brutal murder be turned over to the marines.

US/military viewpoint  
News Source
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Author
-
Title

Jo Wilding
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APRIL 17TH - FALLUJA
Specific incidents / deaths

A body arrives at the hospital, a wound to the leg and his throat sliced open. The men say he was lying injured in the street and the marines came and slit his throat. A pick up races up and a man is pulled out with most of his arm missing, a stump with bits sticking out, pouring blood. He bleeds to death.

...

A heavily pregnant woman was killed by a missile, her unborn child saved, the sheikh says, but already orphaned.

...

"My brother was killed and my brother's son and my sister's son. My other brother is in the prison at Abu Ghraib. I am the last one left. Can you imagine? And this morning my best friend was killed. He was wounded in the leg and lying in the street and the Americans came and cut his throat."

That was the one who came into the hospital this morning.

Date killed? 17th and pre-17th
Total 1
(injured man whose throat was slit) + 1 (pregnant woman, survived by her baby) + 3 (brother, nephew and niece of Wilding's kidnapper)
Civilian / Fighter  
Cumulative deaths [and injuries] While we wait we chat with the sheikh in the mosque. He says the hospitals have recorded 1200 casualties, between 5-600 people dead in the first five days of fighting and eighty-six children killed in the first three days of fighting. There's no knowing how many have been hurt or killed in areas held by the US.
Date range? 5th-9th (children 5th-7th)
Total 5-600 in Iraqi-held areas (86 children in first 3 days) [1200 'casualties']
Civilian / Fighter 86 children included
Selected info, comment, analysis

This time we walk away from the hospital towards the marines, just us and the loudspeaker, no ambulance, to try and talk to them properly. Slowly, slowly, we take steps, shouting that we're unarmed, that we're a relief team, that we're trying to get supplies to the hospital.

Another two shots dissuade us. I'm furious. From behind the wall I inform them that their actions are in breach of the Geneva Conventions. "How would you feel if it was your sister in that hospital unable to get treated because some man with a gun wouldn't let the medical supplies through." David takes me away as I'm about to call down a plague of warts on their trigger fingers.

...

"Falluja people like peace but after we were attacked by the US they lost all their friends here. We had a few trained officers and soldiers from the old army, but now everyone has joined the effort. Not all of the men are fighting: some left with their families, some work in the clinics or move supplies or go in the negotiating teams. We are willing to fight until the last minute, even if it takes a hundred years."

He says the official figure is 25% of the town controlled by the marines: "This is made up of small parts, a bit in the north east, a bit in the south east, the part around the entrance to the town, controlled with snipers and light vehicles." The new unity between Shia and Sunni pleases him: "Falluja is Iraq and Iraq is Falluja. We received a delegation from all the governorates of Iraq to give aid and solidarity."

...

If people oppose the occupation, he says, how is it that the government could carry on and do it. He's genuinely interested but also sarcastic: surely the great liberators must be truly democratic, truly governing by the will of the people?

...

They took us because we were foreigners acting strangely in the middle of their war. They found out what we were doing and let us go. On the way out we were able to open up the checkpoint which meant people were able to get out of Falluja to safety. If that was all we did it would still have been worth it. But still in a quiet moment later on I whisper a thank you to the cheeky angels who look after clowns and ambulance volunteers.

US/military viewpoint

Lee makes a scribble, unsure who he's meant to be but happy to have a ticket through the checkpoint which all the cars before us have been turned back from, and Sergeant Tratner carries on. "You guys be careful in Falluja. We're killing loads of those folks." Detecting a lack of admiration on our part, he adds, "Well, they're killing us too. I like Falluja. I killed a bunch of them mother fuckers."

...

The fear in Falluja is that, when most of the women and children are gone, the town is going to be destroyed and everyone killed, by massive aerial bombardment or with a thermobaric weapon or something. Ahrar tries to explain that the men who want to leave are the ones who don't want to fight.

"Oh, we want to keep them in there," the marine says. "There's fighters coming from all over Iraq into Falluja and we want to keep them all in there so we can kill them all more easily."

...

"Are you crazy?" asks one of the soldiers.

I feel a bit closer to insanity than I did before that walk into the unknown, I have to confess, as mortars thunder out of their encampment. He tells me not to worry, they're outgoing. Of course there's some comfort in this. An outgoing mortar is preferable in many ways to an incoming one, but it seems at the same time like a bit of an invitation, RSVP written all over it.

News Source
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Author
-
Title
Agence France-Presse
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Ned Parker
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IRAQI DOCTORS WATCH HELPLESSLY AFTER DAYS OF WAR IN FALLUJAH
Specific incidents / deaths

Marines have escorted six wounded to the hospital from Fallujah. A three-year-old boy with shrapnel wounds to the back died there, said Dr Ahmed Zawahreh.

...

Staff have buried two males in the hard brown desert around the isolated compound.

One was a 70-year-old man killed by shrapnel fragments to his mouth; the other was an unidentified corpse, with bruises and rope burns on the arms and legs, which was dropped off by US troops, said Zawahreh and hospital director Colonel Hisham al-Farrouri.

Farrouri said that they did not know the circumstances of the 25-year-old man's death and the US Marines had no record of the incident.

Date killed? pre-19th
Total 1 (3-yr-old boy) + 1 (old man) +1 (bruised man with rope burns) =3
Civilian / Fighter 3/0
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]  
Date range?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Selected info, comment, analysis

Most of the wounded brought to the hospital, opened last April by the Jordanian government, have come from villages surrounding the Sunni Muslim city, including Qarna, the site of fierce fighting last week.

US/military viewpoint  
News Source
-
Author
-
Title

New York Times
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IAN FISHER
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THE STANDOFF

Specific incidents / deaths

But even as the agreement was announced, the military reported a skirmish on Monday with insurgents it said had taken up positions inside a mosque and an adjacent building in Falluja. The insurgents attacked marines in the area, the statement said. The marines fought back, killing six people they identified as insurgents.

Date killed? 19th
Total 6 ('insurgents')
Civilian / Fighter 0/6
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]  
Date range?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Selected info, comment, analysis

But the possibility of renewed fighting in Falluja remained real, as United States officials expressed skepticism that Iraqi civic leaders could actually persuade the insurgents to disarm.

"There is a big question about whether or not they can deliver, and that remains to be seen," Dan Senor, a spokesman for the American-led civilian administration, said Monday. "And we have been very clear that time is running out. There's only so much longer we can continue this process before we have to re-engage and reinitiate operations."

...

The agreement requires American forces to allow "unfettered access" to the city's main hospital, to shorten by two hours a nighttime curfew and to allow people who fled the fighting in the city to begin to return, at the rate of 50 families a day, starting Tuesday.

In return, civic leaders must persuade insurgents to hand over mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, sniper rifles, grenades and other weapons. Anyone who hands in weapons will be granted amnesty. The Americans are also demanding joint patrols with Iraqi security officials - many of whom refused to fight the insurgents - and a general reconstruction of Iraqi security organizations. The local authorities must also arrest or remove foreign fighters, who American officials say played a major role in the insurgency.

US/military viewpoint

"We are trying to use peaceful negotiations to try to bring the situation in Falluja to an end," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, chief spokesman for the military command here. But he said there was "a very clear understanding" that if the agreement did not "bear fruit, that the Marine forces out there are more than prepared to continue offensive operations."

News Source
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Author
-
Title
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
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Wisam al-Jaff
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FALLUJANS BREAK THE SIEGE
Specific incidents / deaths

As an example, they talk about a doctor named Akram, who came to Fallujah with a dozen volunteers to help. According to the fighters, Doctor Akram was shot in the head as he left his ambulance, and was killed instantly.

Date killed? pre-19th
Total 1 (Dr. Akram)
Civilian / Fighter 1/0
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]  
Date range?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Selected info, comment, analysis

We spotted another group of fighters, and they waved us over. Muamar introduced me as his nephew and we asked them about the situation.

"We have a problem with the snipers," one fighter told us. "The tanks drive inside carrying snipers, and they enter empty buildings. Most people killed by them are civilians."

...

Another fighter told us that snipers had climbed up the al-Roda al-Muhammediya mosque, and fired on anyone who left the house, "We wanted to shoot him, but one of the residents said, 'No, this is a mosque.' We agreed however to kill him with an RPG-7 [rocket launcher] to stop him killing people." They claim to have hit their target, but in the process they damaged the mosque's light fittings.

...

"Our mosques are full of supplies and assistance which came from our brothers in Baghdad and elsewhere," Mishaan said. "The problem is that no one can go out to get them."

Mishaan introduces us to Abu Sayf, a retired military officer who is also the neighborhood "fidayee" or self-sacrificer who deliberately goes out to see which streets are safe to walk. "I decided to go out, because if we [are forced to stay] inside the house my children will die from hunger," he said. "I can't just keep on listening to them crying. Their voices wound my heart."

US/military viewpoint  

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