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US Pounds Fallujah, Kills 56, Including Women, Children
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Even ambulances are hit
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BAGHDAD,
September 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – At least 56
Iraqis, including women and children, were killed when US occupation
forces launched an overnight aerial onslaught on Fallujah, according to
Iraqi hospital sources Friday, September 17.
Several
air raids hit the
village
of
Zoba
, some 16 kilometers (10 miles) south of Fallujah and demolished 13
houses, a hospital source said.
“The
bodies of 30 people killed in Zoba were brought to Fallujah general
hospital as well as 40 wounded," Doctor Ahmed Khalil told Agence
France-Presse (AFP), adding that many of the victims were women and
children.
Khalil
also said two Iraqi women were killed and eight other people wounded in
another raid on the city.
Al-Jazeera
said the death toll upped 56, adding the main hospital in Fallujah is
overcrowded by casualties.
The
US
military said its jets had carried out a “precision strike and
destroyed a terrorist compound known to be used by the Abu Musab
Al-Zarqawi”, a Jordanian suspected of several attacks in
Iraq
.
However,
Iraqi medical sources and independent journalists in Fallujah say that
most of those wheeled into local hospitals are civilians, including
numbers of women and children.
On
September 9, press reports and medical sources said that women
and children were among 12 people killed in an also overnight
US
missile strike on Fallujah.
Although
the
US
at the time claimed the deaths were all members of Zarqawi’s group, TV
screens splashed out footages of women and children pulled out from
rubble.
At
least 700 Iraqis, mostly
women and children, were killed and 1,500 others injured when the
US
occupation forces imposed a tight siege on the town and intensified air
strikes on its densely-populated areas.
Iraqi
fighters in Fallujah denied
in June 25, the presence of Al-Zarqawi in their town, adding they were
simply defending their homeland against occupation forces.
But
the overwhelming firepower of the
US
occupation troops has failed so far to break the staunch will of
Fallujah resistance fighters.
The
US
military also said three marines were killed in separate incidents in
Al-Anbar Thursday, September 16, without elaborating.
Gun
Battle
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The US onslaughts on Falluja usually leave massive scenes of destruction |
Meanwhile,
gun battles raged for hours in a resistance bastion in the heart of
Baghdad
after an explosives-rigged car tried to ram a checkpoint and was blown
up by American gunfire, according to
US
spokesman Major Philip Smith.
The
driver and possibly a second occupant of the car were killed, he added.
Helicopters
hovered overhead and
US
armor rolled towards the site of the fighting and heavy machinegun fire
could be heard up to four hours after the blast.
Smith
said a joint US-Iraqi operation was ongoing in the area “to deny
terrorists the ability to operate.”
Several
weapons caches were seized, but Smith was unable to give any further
details and denied that US troops were bogged down in heavy fighting.
Two
main bridges spanning the
Tigris
River
closest to the
Haifa Street
trouble spot, where fierce clashes this week left 13 people dead, were
closed and the neighboring streets were sealed off.
On
Thursday, the two main powers behind the invasion of
Iraq
became the latest victims of the kidnapping crisis when two Americans
and a Briton were snatched from their house in an upmarket neighborhood
of
Baghdad
.
No
one has so far claimed the abduction.
The
operation was similar to one of two Italian aid workers and two Iraqis
taken at gunpoint from their office in a quiet residential area of
Baghdad
earlier this month.
Bleak
Picture
In
another blow to US attempts to calm the situation in
Iraq
, a secret
US
intelligence report leaked by the New York Times Thursday painted a
bleak picture of
Iraq
's future, at the same day
US
Secretary General Kofi Annan described the US-led invasion of
Iraq
in March 2003 as “illegal”.
“I
have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN Charter from our
point of view, from the chapter point of view, it was illegal,” Annan
said.
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