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Reference

Falluja Archive Oct 2004

Falluja Table - April 28

Tables with IBC-extracted news, by date:

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IBC Extracted Falluja News - April 28

News Source
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Author
-
Title
Herald Sun
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BLAIR DEFEND US IN FALLUJAH
Specific incidents / deaths

 

Date killed?  
Total

 

Civilian / Fighter

 

Cumulative deaths [and injuries]

 

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

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair today defended US tactics in the assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah, rejecting a legislator's assertion that the attack amounted to the "murder or mutilation of hundreds of women and children."

Disagreeing with the description, Blair said: "There is a situation in Fallujah where we have a large number of very well-armed former regime elements, and probably some outside terrorists as well .. and it is right that the American forces try to make sure that order is restored to that city.

"The people that have been killing civilians in Iraq are not actually the American soldiers," he added.

"They are people who through car bombs, suicide bombs, through attacks on innocent Iraqis as well as coalition forces who are causing that death and destruction totally unnecessarily."

...

Opposition Conservative lawmaker Sir Peter Tapsell questioned the US tactics.

"Does the prime minister support the murder or mutilation of hundreds of women and children in Fallujah as an appropriate response to the savage murder of four American contractors?" said Tapsell, a member of the opposition Conservative party.

"It's not merely the murder of the innocent civilians but also the murder of, I think, some 19 Iraqi police as well," Blair said.

 


US/military viewpoint

US warplanes and artillery pounded Fallujah for hours yesterday in a show of force that comes amid US demands for Sunni insurgents to surrender or die.

News Source
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Author
-
Title
Agence France-Presse
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BLAIR SAYS US AIRSTRIKES IN FALLUJAH ARE JUSTIFIED
Specific incidents / deaths

Overnight US airstrikes on Fallujah -- involving deadly C-130 Specter gunships -- hit a vehicle and a building used by insurgents, according to a spokesman at the main US Marine base just outside the flashpoint Iraqi city.

"Marines took rocket-propelled grenade and direct fire and called air support to engage a vehicle transporting weapons and personnel," US Marine Major T.V. Johnson said on Wednesday.


...

US Brigadier General Mark Kimmit told BBC radio earlier on Wednesday that two Iraqi militiamen had been killed in the overnight fighting but there had been no US military fatalities.

Date killed? 27th-28th (overnight)
Total 2
Civilian / Fighter 0/2
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]

According to the Iraqi health ministry, 280 people -- including 24 women and 30 children -- have been killed in Fallujah since April 5.

Those injured were numbered at 820 -- including 56 women and 46 children -- according to the same source.

Date range? 5th-28th?
Total 280
(IHM)
[820 injured]
Civilian / Fighter 54 women and children [102 injured]
Selected info, comment, analysis

US air strikes overnight on positions held by Sunni rebels in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are "perfectly right and proper", British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday.

"I deeply regret any civilian deaths in Fallujah but it is necessary that order is restored and the Americans are trying to do that," Blair told parliament during his weekly question and answer period.

"If it is the case that American soldiers have been fired on, American soldiers are going to have to fire back and take action to ensure that those insurgents -- these former regime elements and terrorists -- can't disrupt the political process," he told the House of Commons.

"It is perfectly right and proper that they take action against those insurgents," he added.

US/military viewpoint  
News Source
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Author
-
Title
Reuters
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Fadel Badran
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US TROOPS BLAST FALLUJAH AFTER DEADLINE
Specific incidents / deaths  
Date killed?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]  
Date range?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Selected info, comment, analysis

United States aircraft and tanks pounded targets in the besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah on Tuesday, just hours after an American deadline expired for rebels to hand over their heavy weapons, witnesses said.

"I can hear more than 10 explosions every minute. Fires are lighting the night sky," one witness said as US forces blasted sections of the Golan district of the city, scene of heavy fighting between Marines and rebels on Monday.

"The earth is shaking under my feet," he said. Television pictures showed two large fires some 150m apart.

...

United Nations special envoy in Iraq Lakhdar Brahimi, speaking to the Security Council as the battle raged, urged the US-led administration to bring the Fallujah crisis to a peaceful end.

"The Coalition Provisional Authority is well aware that, unless this standoff is brought to a resolution through peaceful means, there is great risk of a very bloody confrontation," he said.

"They know as well as - indeed, better than everyone else - that the consequences of such bloodshed could be dramatic and long-lasting."

US/military viewpoint

In Fallujah, US commanders say they face up to 2 000 fighters - some diehard Saddam loyalists, others trying to reassert Sunni dominance of Iraq, and maybe about 200 foreign Islamic radicals, some possibly linked to al-Qaeda.

News Source
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Author
-
Title
Inter-Press Service
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Aaron Glantz
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U.S. MAY BE FIGHTING ON TWO FRONTS TOO MANY
Specific incidents / deaths  
Date killed?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]  
Date range?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Selected info, comment, analysis ...the overnight shelling in the predominantly Sunni city Fallujah is also reported to have led to several casualties.

...

Kindil says that allowing Iraqis to take a greater role in maintaining security would be critical to defusing the crisis. "From the very beginning it was clear American forces would not be able to maintain security," he said. "They don't know the people, the people don't know them and they don't know the country.. There is no trust between those two sides as there could be between the Iraqi forces and the people."

But the U.S. government has been cool to the SCIRI proposal. It plans to maintain its force of 135,000 after the political handover due June 30 but also control the new Iraqi Army it trained after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein..

Speaking on Fox News channel, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said control of Iraqi forces is necessary "because you have to have unity of command. You can't have two military forces operating independently of one another. So to some extent, they would yield some of their sovereignty to our military commanders."

That policy seems destined to result in more fighting and death in Iraq. In his sermon at the last Friday prayers in Najaf, Muqtada al-Sadr demanded an election before his Mehdi Army would consider surrendering arms. "If I agree with the law of the Americans and their followers, it will be as if I approve of them, and a man like me will never approve."

US/military viewpoint

The U.S. forces are not deterred. "We're going to drive this guy Sadr into the dirt," Brigadier-General Mark Herling told reporters. "Either he tells his militia to put down their arms, form a political party and fight with ideas not guns, or he's going to find a lot of them killed."

News Source
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Author
-
Title
Agence France-Presse
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AIRSTRIKES IN IRAQI TOWN OF FALLUJAH HIT VEHICLE, BUILDING: MILITARY
Specific incidents / deaths  
Date killed?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]  
Date range?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Selected info, comment, analysis

Overnight US airstrikes in Fallujah hit a vehicle and a building used by insurgents, a spokesman said at the main US Marine base just outside the flashpoint Iraqi city.

...

The ceasefire agreed earlier this month was extended on Sunday, and officials of the US-led coalition said they planned to stage joint patrols of the city together with local police.

The patrols initially were scheduled to start on Tuesday, but US overseer in Iraq Paul Bremer said on Iraqi television they would start Thursday.

Marine officers on the ground said the decision was based on sensitivity for the birthday of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein's, which falls on Wednesday. They also said that there were no plans to patrol Jolan, a densely-packed residential area that is considered too much of a danger zone.

Camp Fallujah also came under mortar attack during the night, according to an AFP correspondent at the base, though no casualties were reported.

The base has often come under fire in the past, but US marines said Tuesday night's mortar attack was the first in about two weeks.

US/military viewpoint

"Marines took rocket-propelled grenade and direct fire and called air support to engage a vehicle transporting weapons and personnel," said US Marine Major T.V. Johnson, a spokesman for the US Marines at Camp Fallujah.

He said a heavily armed AC-130 aeroplane "hit the target ... the anti-Iraqi forces fled to a nearby building. The aircraft shot at the building."

...

Military officials did not give the exact position of the latest airstrikes but a pool correspondent embedded at a marine position in the city said the fighting occurred in the Jolan neighborhood, considered the stronghold of the insurgents in the Sunni Muslim bastion.

Johnson said a message broadcast from a Fallujah mosque urged residents to take up arms against the occupation forces, despite a shaky truce between the two sides.

...

The coalition blames the fighting on "anti-Iraqi forces" they say comprise foreign fighters with possible al-Qaeda connections and former members of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime who are disgruntled at losing their privileges.

News Source
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Author
-
Title
Washington Post
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Sewell Chan and Rajiv Chandrasekaran
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64 IRAQIS KILLED IN CLASHES
Specific incidents / deaths  
Date killed?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]  
Date range?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Selected info, comment, analysis

To the west of Baghdad, the besieged city of Fallujah was mostly quiet until nightfall, when at least one AC-130 Spectre gunship fired on the northern Jolan neighborhood, where a Marine was killed Monday.

Marine officials said their forces in the neighborhood were fired on at about 10 p.m., and the airstrike began half an hour later, sending the roar of 105mm cannon fire echoing across the city. Under the terms of a recent cease-fire in Fallujah, the Marines are permitted to return fire when attacked.

US/military viewpoint

The military's top spokesman, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, said it could take six to eight weeks before U.S. and allied forces take full control of Fallujah, where four American security guards were killed on March 31, prompting a U.S. offensive.

Local leaders and U.S. officials announced Sunday that the Marines would conduct joint patrols with the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps to root out insurgents in Fallujah, rather than storming the city. Kimmitt said that commanders did not believe the civil defense force was adequately trained to begin the patrols, but Marine officers in Fallujah said patrols would start Thursday.

Marine commanders are disappointed that local leaders in Fallujah "continue to fail to produce the weapons, fail to produce the fighters, fail to produce those responsible for the heinous acts inside Fallujah," Kimmitt said. Although an agreement reached Sunday calls for heavy weapons to be surrendered, no weapons were turned in Tuesday, he said.

News Source
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Author
-
Title
Reuters
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Fadel Badran
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BUSH WARNS FALLUJA REBELS
Specific incidents / deaths  
Date killed?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]

With Falluja doctors saying some 600 people have been killed in the siege, U.S. forces are wary further bloodshed in the city -- about 50 km (30 miles) from Baghdad -- could inflame public opinion across Iraq and the Arab world.

Date range? 5th-28th?
Total 'some' 600
Civilian / Fighter  
Selected info, comment, analysis

U.S. Marines have launched new air and ground attacks in Falluja, and President George W. Bush says his troops will do whatever it takes to eliminate guerrilla activity in the Iraqi city.

"Our military commanders will take whatever actions necessary to secure Falluja," Bush said told reporters in Washington on Wednesday, as U.S. helicopter gunships and jet aircraft pounded several districts across the Sunni bastion west of Baghdad.

The previous 24 hours saw the most devastating display of U.S. warplane firepower since American forces encircled Falluja three weeks ago in response to the killing of four American contractors and the mutilation of their bodies in the city.

Bush, seeking re-election in November with Iraq a burning campaign issue as U.S. troops suffer their bloodiest month, said there were "pockets of resistance" in the city but "most of Falluja is returning to normal".

...

There were no reports of major civilian casualties in Falluja in the latest fighting, but the severity of the bombardment dismayed some residents.

"This attack shows the frustration in the ranks of American soldiers in Iraq and the American political defeat," said Ali Abdullah. "We have uncovered the treachery and barbarity of the U.S. army."

US/military viewpoint

Black smoke rose above the palm-dotted Golan district and heavy firing echoed elsewhere but U.S. commanders said they were holding back from an all-out assault on the city of 300,000 in hopes that guerrillas might yet agree to turn in heavy weapons.

U.S. Marine Corps Major General John Sattler said there were "somewhere around 1,500" guerrillas in Falluja, including former members of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard military units and foreign Islamic militants.

"The intent is not to take the town of Falluja. The intent is to give the town of Falluja back to the Fallujan people," Sattler told reporters.

...

With Falluja doctors saying some 600 people have been killed in the siege, U.S. forces are wary further bloodshed in the city -- about 50 km (30 miles) from Baghdad -- could inflame public opinion across Iraq and the Arab world.

News Source
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Author
-
Title

Guardian
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Dan Glaister
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US GUNSHIPS POUND FALLUJA

Specific incidents / deaths  
Date killed?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]  
Date range?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Selected info, comment, analysis

Heavy fighting broke out last night for the second day running in the Iraqi city of Falluja. US marines, joined by AC130 gunships, pounded the Golan neighbourhood of the city in what American military sources said was a response to firing by insurgents.

Television pictures showed two large fires burning in the Sunni-dominated city. Artillery and small arms fire could be heard, as well as loudspeakers calling firefighters into action.

...

While American commanders indicated that they were keen to avoid a repeat of the intense fighting that swept Falluja in early April, UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi expressed dismay at the renewal of hostilities.

"There is little doubt that many lives have been lost and much suffering has been endured by civilians," he told a briefing at the UN in New York.

"You have also seen on the television screens, yesterday, images of yet another mosque which had taken a direct hit. Reports today of attacks from and on a mosque are a source of shock."

Unless a peaceful end was found to the fighting in Falluja, he said, "there is great risk of a very bloody confrontation".

The coalition, he added, "know as well as, indeed, better than everyone else, that the consequences of such bloodshed could be dramatic and long-lasting."

US/military viewpoint

US commanders denied that the fighting indicated an end to the siege and the commencement of an all-out offensive, and insisted they would continue with negotiations. The professed US military aim remains the introduction of joint Iraqi-US foot patrols in the city of 200,000.

Moments before reports of the fighting emerged, the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, told a Pentagon briefing that military commanders in Falluja did not intend to give up on a negotiated end to the siege. "They see sufficient prospects that it leads them to believe that this is a useful thing to be doing," he said.

But leaflets dropped in the city by US forces during the day seemed to suggest that US forces were nearing their endgame. "Surrender, you are surrounded," the leaflets said. "If you are a terrorist, beware, because your last day was yesterday. In order to spare your life, end your actions and surrender to coalition forces now. We are coming to arrest you."

News Source
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Author
-
Title

New York Times
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CHRISTINE HAUSER
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SIEGE DEFINED ON STONES SET IN HASTE IN THE DIRT

(See also April 27 sources,
IN FALLUJA, FINDING A PLACE FOR THE DEAD)

Specific incidents / deaths

One [buried] man, Abu Abdullah, was described as "mutilated by the Americans."

Date killed? pre-27th
Total 1
Civilian / Fighter  
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]  
Date range?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Selected info, comment, analysis

The place where the new dead lie in this city west of Baghdad was once a soccer stadium called the Falluja Sports Club.

But now, after more than three weeks of fighting between American marines and insurgents, it is known as the Falluja Martyrs Cemetery.

...

On Tuesday afternoon, there were the sounds of continuing battle, despite a declared truce. The rattle of machine-gun fire and explosions that sounded like tank rounds could be heard in the distance.

...

More room was being made for graves in the center of the stadium, where the turf had been tilled with trenches deep enough to stand in.

"There are still a lot of bodies out there," said Hamza, another gravedigger. "But we can't get them because of the fighting."

Some of the bodies were pulled out from under the rubble of bombed homes, said Iraqis at the cemetery. One grave was simply marked "hand." Another "fingers."

...


It was clear who was in control of this neighborhood at the moment. The masked men demanded and were shown identification cards.

A short distance away, two Iraqi policemen and a civil defense patrolman sat in the main road.

One policeman, Walid Faiq, stood up from the curb. He said that, as a local resident of Falluja, "there was no difference" between him and the armed men deep inside the neighborhood's alley.

But unlike those men, he said, "We don't carry weapons."

He pointed to a sandbagged wall on the roof of a two-story building, which he said was an American sniper position. "Our job is just to keep the two sides apart as best as we can," he said.

US/military viewpoint  
News Source
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Author
-
Title
New York Times
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JOHN KIFNER and CHRISTINE HAUSER
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FIGHTING RESUMES IN FALLUJA; RETURN OF FAMILIES IS HALTED
Specific incidents / deaths

The battle on Wednesday, which left as many as 20 Iraqis dead and 3 marines wounded, began with an ambush of the marines by a band of 13 insurgents, Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne told The Associated Press. The insurgents were then reinforced by as many as three dozen more fighters.

As American snipers sent round after round into the insurgents' hiding place, helicopter gunships hovered overhead, firing machine guns and cannons. The battle ended after the marines called in warplanes that dropped two 500-pound bombs, Colonel Byrne said.

Date killed? 28th
Total 20
Civilian / Fighter  
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]  
Date range?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Selected info, comment, analysis

Earlier in the day, a huge crowd of families, including black-shrouded women and children, had gathered along the highway trying to get back to their homes. Roughly a third of the city of 200,000 people are said to have fled during the fighting. Ten families were reportedly able to get into the city through another checkpoint early in the morning before all passage was ordered stopped.

...

The first mortar round sounded at 8:28 a.m., and Army National Guard troops manning the main checkpoint near the cloverleaf on the highway leading west from Baghdad soon began taking down the welcoming signs and stretching a spiked barrier and coils of razor wire across the road.

Shortly before 10 a.m., an exasperated Lt. Col. Michael J. Lee ordered over a field telephone that no Iraqi families be allowed into the city. With that, a crowd of several thousand began drifting, then retreating eastward.

...

A meeting between the marines and Falluja's mayor, Mahmoud Ibrahim, also went poorly.

The mayor told Colonel Lee that three sections of the city were beyond his control, and that the American-sponsored Iraqi police and security forces were afraid to go in. The untamed sectors - Jolan, Hayal Askeri and Shuhada - seemed to make up roughly half the city.

Privately, several Marine officers who have dealt with Mayor Ibrahim said he was heartily disliked by much of the public, although they gave him credit for courage in trying to resolve the situation. He had been mayor for the last few years under Saddam Hussein's government. The officers were somewhat uncertain how he had remained mayor, saying he seemed to have been chosen at some sort of a council.

US/military viewpoint

To the marines who watched the pickup truck bounce into their camp on the edge of the city, it was far from clear that the weapons surrendered would satisfy American demands.

"This is one of those tests to see how stupid we are," muttered one marine, watching the Iraqis pick through the ordnance and arrange each piece neatly in rows to be counted and examined.

"This is an insult," said another.

News Source
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Author
-
Title
Agence France-Presse
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US POUNDS IRAQI INSURGENTS AS UN ENVOY LAYS OUT POLITICAL BLUEPRINT
Specific incidents / deaths  
Date killed?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]

Iraq's health ministry said 280 people had been killed in Fallujah since April 5, including 24 women and 30 children, with 820 wounded, although the figures did not appear to include those who did not make it to hospitals. Other estimates have put the death toll much higher.

Date range? 5th-28th?
Total 280
(IHM - but 'Other estimates... much higher')
[820 injured]
Civilian / Fighter 54 women and children [102 injured]
Selected info, comment, analysis

Brahimi warned that fighting in cities like Najaf and Fallujah could have long-term consequences for the US-led coalition, which will hand over power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30.

"Unless this stand-off is brought to a resolution through peaceful means, there is great risk of a very bloody confrontation," he said late Tuesday.

Even as he spoke in the council chamber in New York, a US AC-130 Spectre gunship aircraft circled over a suspected insurgent position in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, and hammered it with 105 mm Howitzer rounds.

US/military viewpoint  
News Source
-
Author
-
Title
Indo-Asian News Service
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UN ENVOY WARNS US AGAINST FURTHER BLOODSHED IN IRAQ
Specific incidents / deaths  
Date killed?  
Total  
Civilian / Fighter  
Cumulative deaths [and injuries]

US troops launched offensives on Fallujah, a city inhabited by Sunnis, April 5 after four US contractors were killed there.

The offensives have reportedly left over 800 Iraqis dead and more than 1,000 wounded.

Date range? 5th-28th?
Total

'reportedly' 800+
['more than' 1000 wounded]

Civilian / Fighter  
Selected info, comment, analysis

UN envoy Lakdhar Brahimi has urged the United States to avoid launching military actions in Fallujah and other Iraqi cities, warning of "dramatic" consequences, Xinhua reports.

"The security situation (in Iraq), above all else, was and remains extremely worrying," Brahimi told the Security Council, citing the standoff in Fallujah, the Shia uprising in southern Iraq and a general increase in violence in that country.

...


For fear of high casualties among Iraqi civilians and on their own side, the US troops have avoided rolling into the city. A fragile ceasefire between Sunni insurgents and the US troops has been extended several times.

US/military viewpoint  

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