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Falluja attack looms, civilians urged to flee
U.S. air and artillery strikes shook rebel-held Falluja late on Friday after troops, using leaflets and loudspeakers, urged Iraqi civilians to leave. U.N. chief Kofi Annan warned a widely predicted all-out offensive to take the city could threaten national elections due in January.
Insurgents also killed one U.S. soldier by firing on positions near the city. U.S. troops sealed all roads to Falluja and urged women, children and non-fighting age men to flee, but said they would arrest any man under 45 trying to enter or leave the city. Most of the Sunni Muslim city's 300,000 people have already fled after weeks of intensive air and ground bombardments. A bloody offensive would further anger Iraqis and threaten the poll that has been set for Jan. 27, Annan warned in letters to President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Allawi and his U.S.-led backers say Falluja is the center of the insurgency in Iraq whose capture is crucial to ensuring the election goes ahead on time and is free and fair. Annan's comments highlight longstanding differences with Washington over how best to restore peace in Iraq. "The threat or actual use of force not only risks deepening the sense of alienation of certain communities, but would also reinforce perceptions among the Iraqi population of a continued military occupation," he wrote in the letters, seen by Reuters. He said now was the time to boost efforts "to break the cycle of violence and open a new chapter of inclusiveness and national reconciliation." 'IT WILL BE SOON' But his appeal won little response as U.S. warplanes and artillery continued to bomb Falluja, 30 miles west of Baghdad. "We are making last preparations (to attack). It will be soon. We are just awaiting orders from Prime Minister Allawi," Marine Corps Colonel Michael Shupp told Reuters near Falluja. Allawi met European Union leaders in Brussels on Friday and was expected to return to Iraq after that. He secured a modest $21 million package from the bloc to support the elections and to help fund a possible U.N. protection force for the voting. The United States and Britain hope a successful election will help defuse the increasingly bloody insurgency that has blighted their success in toppling Saddam Hussein last year.
The United Nations, cautious about committing foreign staff since 22 people died when its Baghdad headquarters were bombed in 2003, plans to field up to 25 election staff soon. "We will provide adequate resources to get our work done," Annan told reporters. The U.S. military says about 1,000 to 6,000 Saddam loyalists and militants led by Jordanian al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are holed up in Falluja. Zarqawi's fighters have claimed responsibility for hostage beheadings and some of Iraq's bloodiest bombings. His group urged other militants holding an Iraqi-British woman hostage, aid worker Margaret Hassan, to free her unless she was a spy, a message posted on an Islamic Web site said. The U.S. military says the assault on Falluja will succeed where an April one failed because this time it will be ordered by an Iraqi government and Iraqi forces will be involved. In April, Iraqi units refused to fight with U.S. troops. |
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