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US Death Toll Hits 1,000, Fallujah Fiercely Hit
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Iraqis survey destroyed cars covered by sand following a US air strike into Fallujah
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FALLUJAH,
September 8 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The US death
toll since the start of the Iraq invasion in March last year hit the
scary mark of 1000 as US warplanes launched late Tuesday, September 7,
deadly strikes into the restive Iraqi city of Fallujah, and the US
military claimed they killed 100 Iraqi fighters, but Iraqis put the
toll at only six.
"Significant
numbers of enemy fighters (up to 100) are estimated to have been
killed," the US military said in a statement carried by Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
"We
are responding after being under fire. We are hitting enemy positions
in the city since 6:30 pm (1430 GMT). We are using aircraft and
artillery fire," said US Marine spokesman Lieutenant Colonel T.V.
Johnson.
However,
sources in Fallujah told AFP that the strikes have killed at least six
Iraqis and wounded scores others.
Analysts
played down the staggering death toll in Fallujah, saying it is part
of a psychological warfare given the 14 US soldiers killed within 48
hours.
Iraqi
medics have also told Reuters that the general hospital’s morgue has
only received four bodies.
One
ambulance driver further told AFP that he had taken two dead and 15
wounded to hospital.
US
aircraft and artillery pounded the southern Shuhada district and
industrial zone of Fallujah.
Smoke
mushroomed into the sky. Warplanes strafed the industrial zone the
general hospital had received an undetermined number of casualties and
panic swept the city.
Mosque
loud speakers wailed "God is Great" amid the cacophony.
Fallujah,
which lies 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, is a bastion of
the Iraqi resistance against US-led forces in Iraq.
A
US air strike on what the Americans claimed was a suspected resistance
position in the city killed 20 people one week ago.
Residents
of Fallujah have often countered US claims that resistance fighters
were being attacked, saying that those coming under fire were ordinary
Iraqi civilians.
In
April, at least 700 Iraqis, mostly
women and children, were killed and 1500 others injured
when the US occupation forces imposed a tight siege on the city and
intensified air strikes on its densely-populated areas.
1000
Casualties
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The US death toll in Iraq has reached 1,000 since March last year
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Meanwhile,
the United States military death toll in Iraq reached 1,000 Tuesday,
nearly 18 months after the invasion, making its mark on the US
presidential election campaign, AFP said.
US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that the 1,000 death
toll would soon be passed.
But
he insisted that Iraq was better off than before the US-led invasion
in March 2003.
"Soon
the American forces are likely to suffer the 1,000th casualty at the
hands of terrorists and extremists in Iraq. When combined with US
losses in other theaters in the global war on terror, we have lost
well more than 1,000 already," he said.
Rumsfeld
and General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said
in their joint press conference that "insurgent" attacks on
US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan were likely to intensify as
elections in the two countries approach.
"There
are really no free passes in this struggle, this war. There are no
free passes for countries. There are really no free passes for
individuals," Rumsfeld said.
"And
for that reason the civilized world has to stay on the offensive. And
that's exactly what the coalition is doing," he said.
The
rival democrats' camp has, however, termed the 1,000 mark as a
"black one" in the history of America.
"Of
all the wrong choices that President Bush has made, the most
catastrophic choice is the mess that he has made in Iraq,"
Reuters quoted Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry as telling a
town hall meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Seven
US marines and three Iraqi national guardsmen were killed in a car
bombing near Fallujah Monday, September 6, the
worst single strike against the US military in months.
The
Washington Post said Sunday,
September 5, that about 1,100 US soldiers and Marines were wounded in
Iraq during the month of August alone, by far the
highest injury toll for any month since the invasion of
Iraq began.
Nearly
7,000 US troops have been wounded since the US-led invasion in March
last year, according to a Reuters count.
The
war on Iraq fuels the presidential race to the White House with
Democratic candidate John Kerry frequently hitting out at Bush for the
awkward policy in Iraq and trying to make it a major campaign issue.
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