Locals flee as US steps up its offensive in Fallujah

On the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, local leaders reported the presence of US tanks on the northern Al-Thirthar road, close to the railway station. More than 1,000 troops, including a US Army battalion and a Marine battalion, with Iraqi special forces, took part in the overnight operation.

The man who had been negotiating peace terms with the Iraqi interim government was said to have been arrested by US soldiers. The headquarters of the US-led multinational force denied that US soldiers had arrested Khalid Hamoud al-Jumailim, Fallujah’s chief negotiator. But a spokesman for the hardline Association of Muslim Scholars told The Times that Mr al Jumaili had been seized at a US checkpoint as he returned from delivering humanitarian aid to refugee families in the village of Amaryat.

The road to Baghdad was blocked by US forces, but local people said that refugees were fleeing to towns and villages outside the bombing zone. “In the battle last April I didn’t leave the city because the bombs were falling only on areas where the fighters were,” said Ahmed Ismail, 32, a shopkeeper who escaped to the village of al-Buissa with his wife and four small children. “But last night they were bombing the entire city, and many families were killed. We are all targets now.

“People assume that the Americans are bombing us to drive a wedge between ordinary people and the guerrillas. They think that we will blame the guerrillas for the bombs — but they only make us more sympathetic.”

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1312647,00.html