Aid convoy barred from 'starving' Falluja

[POA]

Aid convoy barred from 'starving' Falluja

Monday 15 November 2004, 21:58 Makka Time, 18:58 GMT

An aid convoy has been forced to turn back from the beleaguered city of Falluja as more evidence emerged of a mounting humanitarian crisis on the eighth day of a US offensive to crush resistance forces.

The convoy from Iraq's Red Crescent withdrew from a hospital on the edge of Falluja on Monday after failing to get permission to deliver supplies to residents inside the city, a spokeswoman said.

The trucks laden with food, water and medical supplies will travel instead to villages around Falluja where tens of thousands of people have set up camp after fleeing the massive week-old offensive spearheaded by US marines, said Firdaus al-Ubadi.

Relief agencies are trying to get food, water and medicine to hundreds of families they say are trapped inside Falluja.

The military said it was announcing over loudspeakers in the city that civilians needing medical or other help should seek out US forces.

Food shortage

A spokesman for the Shura Council of the Falluja Mujahidin told Aljazeera some families had been without water, food and electricity for the past five days. He said US forces were restricting the relief groups to one area.

"We plead to the conscience of the Islamic world for help," said Abu Saad al-Dulaimi.

"There are massacres in Falluja, there are assassinations, only because the city's people are protecting their honour and dignity."

Asma Khamis al-Muhannadi, an assistant doctor who witnessed the US and Iraqi National Guards raid into Falluja hospital, told Aljazeera that the medical staff received threats from the Iraqi health minister who said if anyone disclosed information about the raid, they would be arrested or dismissed from their jobs.

Falluja medical staff say US
soldiers beat hospital workers

"We were tied up and beaten despite being unarmed and having only our medical instruments," al-Muhannadi said.

"The hospital was targeted by bombs and rockets. I was with a woman in labour. The umbilical cord had not yet been cut. At that time, a US solider shouted at one of the national guards to arrest me and tie my hands while I was helping the mother to deliver. I will never forget this incident," the assistant doctor said. (personal emphasis)

"I am from Falluja and I work there. They claimed I was a fighter and stole our money and mobile phones," she said.

Patients targeted

"The troops dragged patients from their beds and pushed them towards the wall. There were 17 injured people among the patients," al-Muhannadi said.

"We exited from the hospital on the second day of the attack, but we could not return as the main Falluja-Saqlawiya junction was controlled by the US troops. We saw around 150 women, children and the elderly attacked by aircraft fire," she said.

"All of us were subject to intense inspection; the soldiers even examined children's nappies. Two female doctors were forced to totally undress," al-Muhannadi said.

Residents say many civilians have died and hospitals continue to receive casualties, including children.

Many child refugees were taken
for treatment to Baghdad

Latest attacks

The US miltary said it had targeted a fortified underground bunker on Monday with reinforced tunnels leading to stores of weapons, including an anti-aircraft artillery gun.

At least five artillery rounds and air strikes hit the southern portion of the city, and soon afterwards exchanges of gunfire and blasts could be heard.

The attacks followed sporadic mortar rounds against resistance targets overnight.

"One mission early on 15 November attacked a bunker complex in the southernmost unpopulated section of Falluja after multi-national forces discovered an underground bunker and steel-reinforced tunnels," a US military statement said.

"The tunnels connected a ring of facilities filled with weapons, an anti-aircraft artillery gun, bunk beds, a truck and a suspected weapons cache."

The US military also alleged it had uncovered so-called torture chambers in Falluja. However, this could not be independently substantiated and no pictures have been released by the US military to verify the claim.

One marine was killed on Monday bringing to 39 the number of US soldiers who have died since the assault on Fallujah was launched, according to military figures.

At least five Iraqi troops have died. US sources put the number of dead resistance fighters at 1200 but the Shura Council of the Falluja Mujahidin says the figure is closer to 100.

The claims have been impossible to verify independently.

[Moses]

From the Los Angeles Times
CONFLICT IN IRAQ
Iraqi City Lies in Ruins
The next step, reconstruction, could cost the U.S. tens of millions of dollars.
By Patrick J. McDonnell
Times Staff Writer

November 15, 2004, 10:15 AM PST
FALLOUJA, Iraq -- Even as small groups of guerrillas continued putting up fierce resistance here today, U.S. commanders were preparing for the next phase of the operation: the complete reconstruction of a city that has been devastated in battle.

"It's a monumental task," said Marine Maj. Timothy Hanson, one of the first civil affairs officers on the scene to assess the scope of destruction in the city that had become the tactical and inspirational capital of the Iraqi insurgency.

....Reconstruction of Fallouja is on hold as the fighting persists, especially in southern areas of the city, where some of the most diehard guerrillas are reported to be making a last stand. Some have burrowed underground, prompting U.S. forces Saturday to drop a 2,000-pound bomb -- the most powerful munition used here to date -- on a tunnel complex.

....Automatic weapons fire and explosions continued to rock the center of the city, though much diminished in the past day. The U.S. military reported that at least 38 American troops and six Iraqi soldiers had been killed in eight days of fighting.

....The reconstruction effort in Fallouja will require tens of millions of dollars in U.S. funds to compensate residents for damaged property and to rebuild large parts of the city damaged by weeks of U.S. airstrikes and street-by-street fighting.

The project seems likely to dwarf the large-scale rebuilding scheme in the southern city of Najaf, where damage was estimated at $500 million after a Marine offensive in August ousted Shiite Muslim militiamen.

Fallouja once was home to about 300,000 people, though most fled before U.S.-led forces launched the assault early last week. The city now lies abandoned and in ruins, a tableau of the aftermath of urban warfare.

The town's main east-west drag, a key objective of U.S. troops, is a tangle of rubble-filled lots and shot-up storefronts. Shattered water and sewage pipes have left pools of sewage-filled water, sometimes knee-deep. Scorched and potholed streets are filled with debris; power lines droop in tangles or lie on the ground.

Many mosques, the city's pride and joy, are a shambles after insurgents used them as shelter and firing positions, drawing return fire from the Marines.

Houses have been ransacked by insurgents and further damaged as U.S. troops chased snipers, searched for weapons caches or took cover in the homes. Marines routinely called in tanks, artillery and airstrikes to take out gunmen.

But the bombed-out buildings are only the most obvious damage.

There is no running water or electricity. The water, power and sewage infrastructure will probably need complete overhauls.

Food distribution systems must be reinstituted. Shops must be reopened, commerce resumed. Battered hospitals, clinics and schools must be patched up and reopened.

Beyond that, U.S. officials have lofty plans to help install a democratic government here that will answer to Allawi's administration. A police force of more than 1,000 officers must be deployed in a city where police have been consistently targeted for assassination in the past as collaborators with the Americans.

"The challenge is to get a civil administration up and running, and they are starting from zero," said a senior U.S. diplomat. "They have to do everything from getting the director of the waterworks to come back to work to getting a chief of police."

And, if all that wasn't enough, commanders would like the city to be ready to hold peaceful elections in January, when Iraqis nationwide are scheduled to choose a national assembly.

In all, it is a colossal challenge of nation-building -- albeit concentrated in one city -- made all the more difficult because Fallouja remains in the heart of the Sunni Triangle, long a source of support for ousted dictator Saddam Hussein and resistance to U.S. and coalition forces.

"This is very important: to restore the infrastructure of the city and get the Iraqi government and the police established, and keep the insurgents from coming back in," Natonski said.

Despite the clear military gains, the city remains insecure enough that major civil affairs units that will oversee reconstruction have yet to arrive. But more than $50 million in contracts has already been let, and people are standing by, ready to start work as soon as it is safe enough.

A coordinating team -- including officials from the U.S. military and civilian agencies as well as the Iraqi government -- has been meeting for the last two weeks to figure out how to spend the roughly $200 million allocated for Fallouja and nearby Ramadi.

Overall responsibility for rebuilding Fallouja will fall to the Marines' 4th Civil Affairs Group, a largely reserve unit based in Washington that is poised on the outskirts of the city.

Mortuary teams to pick up the remains of hundreds of insurgents killed in the fighting also have been held back, as bodies rot in the streets.

"It's a health hazard," conceded Natonski. "We'll soon be taking care of that We just need to ensure that we're not taking casualties taking care of bodies."

It is unclear when residents will be allowed back into the city. A 24-hour curfew is in effect, and those civilians still present have been warned to stay in their homes, as food and water supplies dwindle. U.S. and Iraqi forces have been handing out emergency water and rations.

On Sunday, when Muslims marked the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, virtually no one was seen on the streets besides U.S. troops and their guerrilla quarry.

Marines are constructing a displaced-persons camp east of the city, though most former residents appear to have settled in with extended family members in Baghdad and elsewhere.

The abandonment of the city made the Marines' job a lot easier during combat, reducing the threat of civilian casualties.

Now, commanders worry that a large-scale return of residents -- and vehicles -- will increase the peril, especially from suicide car bombers.

"As civilians begin driving around, the [car bomb] threat is going to be at its highest point," said Lt. Col. Gareth Brandl, commander of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment.

Plans are already in place to screen returning civilians, especially military-age males. But differentiating between fighters and noncombatants is likely to be a difficult task, given that many of Fallouja's native sons are known to have joined the insurgency.

In the works is some kind of "Welcome Back to Fallouja" campaign, directing residents to military civil affairs offices where people can find reconstruction help.

"It won't be a fruit basket or anything like that," said Hanson, the Marine major. He had $500,000 in cash for various expenses: compensating civilians who had suffered property losses or injuries or lost relatives deemed not to be insurgents.

Money also will be spread around to pay residents to help clean up the streets, assuming the people of Fallouja would be willing to take money from Americans and overcome fears of being branded collaborators.

Establishing security will be essential to allowing U.S. personnel and Iraqi contractors to work.

"We have to be able to allow the Iraqis to come in and work freely and independently without being terrorized and intimidated and corrupted," said Hanson, a reservist and police sergeant from suburban Omaha. "If they go into a building, they shouldn't have to worry about that."

U.S. officials also hope to work with civilian leaders to select a representative council. Thousands of Iraqi police and soldiers are said to be ready to be deployed to Fallouja. Many are from outside the city, in the hopes that they will be less susceptible to intimidation.

The entire municipal government complex must be rebuilt and secured. The police station, City Hall and other government buildings have been seriously damaged, heavily looted and are occupied by Marines.

The compound is probably going to be refurbished and expanded to house both the Iraqi government and U.S. forces, commanders say.

Inside an adjacent school complex where Marines also are posted, state-of-the-art photocopy machines and refrigerators stand gutted and abandoned, the remnants of earlier U.S.-funded reconstruction efforts. Marines say they are confident the next attempt to rebuild Fallouja will spur goodwill and divert people from supporting the insurgency.

"We're poised and ready to go to help Fallouja rebuild," said Marine Capt. Matt Nodine, an attorney for the 1st Battalion. "People will know where to find us if they need help."

Times staff writer Alissa J. Rubin in Baghdad, special correspondents Caesar Ahmed and Roaa Ahmed in Mosul and Associated Press contributed to this report.

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[Moses]

Aid Groups Worry About Fallujah Citizens


Monday November 15, 2004 11:16 PM


AP Photo ANS110

By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS

Associated Press Writer

GENEVA (AP) - The Red Cross and other international aid organizations have not been able to enter the conflict zone in Fallujah in more than a week of fighting, the agency said Monday, as concern spread about the civilians trapped inside the embattled Iraqi city.

``We are very worried,'' Ahmed Rawi, the Baghdad spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

He said a convoy of ambulances and trucks carrying relief supplies operated by the Iraqi Red Crescent - the local partner of the Red Cross - reached Fallujah General Hospital on the outskirts of the city Monday.

However, it could not enter the conflict zone because of heavy fighting.

Ismail al-Haqi, director of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, said he decided it was too dangerous for the convoy to proceed. ``I can't sacrifice the lives of the volunteers; it is very dangerous to go inside Fallujah now,'' he said.

The hospital was well-supplied because no patients or wounded people have been able to reach it, Rawi said. ``Regretfully, there was no patient in sight,'' he said.

So, the Red Crescent and other agencies distributed the supplies to civilians who fled the fighting and are living in tents and other temporary quarters outside Fallujah.

Although the Red Cross and other aid agencies have been unable to gain access to people inside Fallujah since the fighting began, a Red Cross spokeswoman said it has confirmed there are civilians trapped inside the city.

``We are sure that there are civilians in Fallujah. This information we have received from families who are still in Fallujah and we have contacted them by phone,'' said Rana Sidani, a spokeswoman at the Geneva headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The agency also has talked to families who have reached camps outside Fallujah and they ``are telling us that their husbands and their sons are there because they were not able to leave Fallujah one day before the big assault,'' she said.

She said there have been a number of reports that men age 15 to 45 were prevented from leaving, but she declined to say who stopped them.

``The Red Cross does not like to point fingers,'' Sidani said. ``We are concerned about all the civilians in the city. We know that there are women and children.''

Sidani said two health centers inside the conflict zone have stopped functioning.

``If the injured are not able to go to the Fallujah General Hospital, we are concerned about the fate of those people, even if they are combatants,'' she said. ``Once they are injured, they have the right to be treated, they have the right to get medical care.''

Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's office issued a statement rejecting fears that civilians faced a shortage of supplies in Fallujah.

``Such claims are irresponsible and are coming from people whose motives are clear as they are members of the toppled Saddam regime or his terrorist allies who were using Fallujah as their base to kill the innocent Iraqi citizens,'' the office said.

``Very few civilians (remained) in Fallujah as large number of the residents escaped from the terrorists' grip who were controlling the city before al-Fajr operation,'' it said.

It said Iraqi government and multinational forces distributed food, water and fuel to the people of Fallujah on Monday and that ``large amounts of food stuff, water, fuel and medicine'' were coming ``to guarantee that nothing will be lacking their residents when they return to their city.''

But in London, Amnesty International accused the United States and the Iraqi government of failing to meet their obligations under international law to protect civilians.

``According to what we're hearing and some testimony from residents who have fled Fallujah, it looks like the toll of civilian casualties is high,'' Nicole Choueiry, spokeswoman of Amnesty International, told the AP.

``It remains the responsibility of the U.S. military officials and the Iraqi government to establish that,'' she said. ``So far they haven't given any figure.''

----

Associated Press writers Tini Tran in Baghdad contributed to this report.
www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4617253,00.html

[Moses]

Falluja refugees tell harrowing stories
  <br>By Anne Barnard The Boston Globe

Tuesday, November 16, 2004




FALLUJA, IraqCowering in their house with nothing to eat or drink as bombardments and firefights shook the neighborhood, Iyad al-Mashadani and his family dug a meter-deep hole in their yard and drank the brackish water. "We were sure that we would die," said Mashadani, 32, a car mechanic.
He and his family - his wife, his six children, his mother, and his father, who has heart disease - made their way south out of Falluja on Wednesday and now live in a tent in a refugee camp in Baghdad.
.Families who fled Falluja in recent days tell harrowing stories of being caught in cross-fires, harassed and threatened by insurgents and Iraqi government soldiers, and hiding as rebels battled U.S. tanks outside their houses.

.U.S. and Iraqi officials estimate that 70 percent to 90 percent of Falluja's population of 250,000 to 300,000 fled the city before the fighting started a week ago. But the most conservative of estimates would place 25,000 civilians inside the city, subject to what U.S. commanders on the ground have called the military's most intense urban fighting since Vietnam.

.U.S. officers said the operation had taken every possible step to minimize civilian casualties. But the methods used - airstrikes and artillery and tank fire from a distance - make it difficult to know whether civilians are caught under fire.

.Troops that pounded through the eastern half of Falluja reported seeing no women or children and saw few men who were not armed. A reporter traveling with troops saw only deserted streets.
.But an Iraqi correspondent for The Globe who covered the battle from Falluja ducked into a house and encountered a woman and her three daughters huddling in terror as bombs exploded around them.

.The Iraqi Red Crescent has identified about 150 families in the city.

.U.S. radio messages and leaflets urged Fallujans to remain in their houses during the assault. But troops using thermal sights often assumed that if there was a "hot spot" inside a house - indicating body heat - the people inside were insurgents.

.Colonel Greg Tucker of the Marines, commander of U.S. forces in the eastern half of the city, said some residents were starting to come out of their house in the mornings.

.On Sunday afternoon, the city, viewed from the main highway that flanks it on the east, appeared to be smoldering, with gray puffs of smoke rising above it from one end to the other. By night, much of the city was again a pitch-dark landscape of crumpled houses.

.If the tens of thousands of refugees who fled Falluja were to return Monday - after months of U.S. bombing, occupation by insurgents and now the fighting - many would find their possessions strewn all over their houses, windows broken or walls collapsed.

.Residents of a neighborhood in the city's southeast, where a 1st Infantry Division battalion has placed its mobile command center, would find it almost unrecognizable. Insurgents built huge earth berms to stop a U.S. assault that they thought would enter the city there. A wall or a ceiling has collapsed in nearly every house. Cabinets have been overturned, spewing family snapshots across the floor.

.Major General Richard Natonski, commander of the 1st Marine Division, who directed the assault, said Sunday that it would be some time before electricity could be restored to the city, because the spaghetti of downed wires that trails into streets and courtyards will have to be repaired first.
.Unexploded weapons, including those fired by both sides as well as undiscovered insurgents' stockpiles, could pose a hazard. Insurgents' weapons may be buried in rubble, while the sheer quantity of U.S. ordnance poured into the city suggests that some dangerous leftovers could still be lying around. One battalion artillery team alone, which covers the far eastern portion of the city, fired 700 155-mm cannon rounds. Twenty-two explosive ordnance disposal teams are set to start work in Falluja.

.Abid al-Aghaidi, 63, who fled with 12 family members, ventured out of his house for the first time in days to see American tanks rolling down his street and insurgents shooting at them with rocket propelled grenades. "The tanks started to shoot randomly and so did the fighters," he said.

.Mashadani, the car mechanic, said he had stayed in Falluja because he believed the Americans would not harm his family. But when the fighting began, they found themselves terrified by the bombs landing frighteningly close.
.

www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/15/news/town.html