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Aid convoy still barred from 'starving' Falluja
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 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.
The International Red Cross said it was striving to gain access.
"The IRC is making contacts with all the parties involved, the multi-national forces, the Iraqi forces and all other parties in order to remind them of their international obligations as stated by the international humanitarian law," said Rana Saidany.
These obligations include the need for treating the wounded, evacuating them from the battle zone along with facilitating the tasks of medical teams and securing the safety of the civilian population."
Saidany added: "It is unacceptable in the 21st century to abandon the wounded stranded on the streets and bleeding to death while preventing medical teams from treating them."
Food shortage
Some families have been without water, food and electricity for five days, according to a spokesman for the Shura Council of the Falluja Mujahidin. Abu Saad al-Dulaimi said US forces were restricting the relief groups to one area.
"We plead to the conscience of the Islamic world for help," he said.
"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 assault on 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.
"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.
"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.
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.
Aljazeera + Agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A800AA57-C2A4-47FB-9BB5-6D6E1B9C3C22.htm
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.
The International Red Cross said it was striving to gain access.
"The IRC is making contacts with all the parties involved, the multi-national forces, the Iraqi forces and all other parties in order to remind them of their international obligations as stated by the international humanitarian law," said Rana Saidany.
These obligations include the need for treating the wounded, evacuating them from the battle zone along with facilitating the tasks of medical teams and securing the safety of the civilian population."
Saidany added: "It is unacceptable in the 21st century to abandon the wounded stranded on the streets and bleeding to death while preventing medical teams from treating them."
Food shortage
Some families have been without water, food and electricity for five days, according to a spokesman for the Shura Council of the Falluja Mujahidin. Abu Saad al-Dulaimi said US forces were restricting the relief groups to one area.
"We plead to the conscience of the Islamic world for help," he said.
"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 assault on 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.
"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.
"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.
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.
Aljazeera + Agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A800AA57-C2A4-47FB-9BB5-6D6E1B9C3C22.htm
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FALLUJAH, November 15 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Discrediting Iraqi assertions that the Falujah offensive is over, US occupation troops launched new air strikes and artillery attacks on the resistance bastion early on Monday, November15 , and further denied access to reach besieged local citizens.
“In the last 24 hours, multinational force aircraft flew several close air support missions, attacking anti-Iraqi forces in numerous buildings throughout the city,” the US military said in a statement.
“One US warplane destroyed an underground bunker complex of steel-reinforced tunnels in the very south of Fallujah during a pre-dawn raid,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"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 occupation forces took issue Sunday, November14 , with the interim Iraqi government, asserting that the “battle for Fallujah” was not over yet.
"Military commanders and troops on the ground will make their determination of when the battle is finished and to this point that determination has not been made," US marines spokesman Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert told AFP.
"We will continue to engage pockets of resistance in the city and eliminate them one by one until the job is done."
Iraqi minister for national security affairs Qassem Dawood told a press conference on Saturday, November13 , that operations in Fallujah had come to an end with the killing of some1 , 000“insurgents”.
Some 10 , 000US marines and army forces, alongside some2 , 000Iraqi national guard soldiers unleashed a long expected onslaught on the resistance hub Monday, November8 , capping long nights of massive US raids.
The invading troops have been fighting a tenacious enemy that has been hard to pin down.
The onslaught looked set to come at a heavy price for the US military as 38 American troops have been killed and up to 250 others evacuated to the US military hospital in the German city of Landstuhl so far, according to occupation estimates.
Barring Aid Convoys
The new US raids on the western Iraqi city come amid growing fears a humanitarian crisis unfolding there especially after the US occupation forces denied aid teams access into the heart of the city.
The Iraqi Red Crescent appealed on Sunday, November15 , for the United Nations to help its convoys reach local citizens.
Abu Fahd, a member of the relief convoy, told Al-Jazeera: "The relief convoy wants to enter Fallujah town for humanitarian purposes only, to save women, children and elderly people".
US troops had directed the relief convoy, carrying emergency food, water and medical supplies into the Fallujah hospital on the outskirts of the town, away from the reach of local citizens.
"They are in the general hospital, but until now the Americans will not let them distribute medical supplies in the city," Red Crescent spokeswoman Fardous al- Ibadi told AFP.
Doctor Jamal Al-Karboulie, the Secretary General of the Iraqi Red Crescent "is negotiating with the Americans to let them distribute the supplies to the people," she added.
She maintained that civilians hiding in the Sunni city were dying of starvation and thirst and something must be done to help them.
The Red Crescent warned on November 12 that a humanitarian crisis was unfolding in Fallujah, describing the situation as a “big disaster”.
“Holocaust”
Giving his hands-on experience, an Iraqi woman, who was forced to flee her native Fallujah, told IslamOnline.net on Saturday, November13 , that bodies of children and injured in the western Iraqi city were “deliberately” crushed by US tanks, describing the situation there as a “holocaust”.
“US occupation soldiers had no mercy on the wounded, who were left stranded on the city’s streets,” the woman, who identified herself as Um Umar, told IOL.
She recalled how a US tank had rolled over the bleeding body of her nephew, crushing him to death.
Bursting into tears, Um Umar, who managed to escape the hell thanks to a group of foreign reporters, said the occupation troops have turned the situation there into a “holocaust that burnt men, women and children alive and reduced houses to rubble”.
“Trees and plans were also uprooted in their scorched earth operation.”
US occupation forces have also targeted the injured, she added.
“When we tried to move out of the city, they took away my sick brother who is aged50 . None of the journalists could bar them from taking him away.”
The Iraqi eyewitness denied US allegations that Arab fighters are stationed in the city.
“I have not seen any non-Iraqis in the city. I have only seen mortar shells fired from El-Wehda district, away from our neighborhood, targeting US tanks.”
“They (US occupiers) claim they wanted to liberate us from the resistance men, but we realize that they want to take away and kill our sons and husbands.”
The western Iraqi city has been coming under repeated US attacks under claims of harboring Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and “Arab fighters and terrorists”, but the Fallujah people have repeatedly maintained that they did not harbor the wanted man.
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-11/15/article03.shtml
“In the last 24 hours, multinational force aircraft flew several close air support missions, attacking anti-Iraqi forces in numerous buildings throughout the city,” the US military said in a statement.
“One US warplane destroyed an underground bunker complex of steel-reinforced tunnels in the very south of Fallujah during a pre-dawn raid,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"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 occupation forces took issue Sunday, November14 , with the interim Iraqi government, asserting that the “battle for Fallujah” was not over yet.
"Military commanders and troops on the ground will make their determination of when the battle is finished and to this point that determination has not been made," US marines spokesman Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert told AFP.
"We will continue to engage pockets of resistance in the city and eliminate them one by one until the job is done."
Iraqi minister for national security affairs Qassem Dawood told a press conference on Saturday, November13 , that operations in Fallujah had come to an end with the killing of some1 , 000“insurgents”.
Some 10 , 000US marines and army forces, alongside some2 , 000Iraqi national guard soldiers unleashed a long expected onslaught on the resistance hub Monday, November8 , capping long nights of massive US raids.
The invading troops have been fighting a tenacious enemy that has been hard to pin down.
The onslaught looked set to come at a heavy price for the US military as 38 American troops have been killed and up to 250 others evacuated to the US military hospital in the German city of Landstuhl so far, according to occupation estimates.
Barring Aid Convoys
The new US raids on the western Iraqi city come amid growing fears a humanitarian crisis unfolding there especially after the US occupation forces denied aid teams access into the heart of the city.
The Iraqi Red Crescent appealed on Sunday, November15 , for the United Nations to help its convoys reach local citizens.
Abu Fahd, a member of the relief convoy, told Al-Jazeera: "The relief convoy wants to enter Fallujah town for humanitarian purposes only, to save women, children and elderly people".
US troops had directed the relief convoy, carrying emergency food, water and medical supplies into the Fallujah hospital on the outskirts of the town, away from the reach of local citizens.
"They are in the general hospital, but until now the Americans will not let them distribute medical supplies in the city," Red Crescent spokeswoman Fardous al- Ibadi told AFP.
Doctor Jamal Al-Karboulie, the Secretary General of the Iraqi Red Crescent "is negotiating with the Americans to let them distribute the supplies to the people," she added.
She maintained that civilians hiding in the Sunni city were dying of starvation and thirst and something must be done to help them.
The Red Crescent warned on November 12 that a humanitarian crisis was unfolding in Fallujah, describing the situation as a “big disaster”.
“Holocaust”
Giving his hands-on experience, an Iraqi woman, who was forced to flee her native Fallujah, told IslamOnline.net on Saturday, November13 , that bodies of children and injured in the western Iraqi city were “deliberately” crushed by US tanks, describing the situation there as a “holocaust”.
“US occupation soldiers had no mercy on the wounded, who were left stranded on the city’s streets,” the woman, who identified herself as Um Umar, told IOL.
She recalled how a US tank had rolled over the bleeding body of her nephew, crushing him to death.
Bursting into tears, Um Umar, who managed to escape the hell thanks to a group of foreign reporters, said the occupation troops have turned the situation there into a “holocaust that burnt men, women and children alive and reduced houses to rubble”.
“Trees and plans were also uprooted in their scorched earth operation.”
US occupation forces have also targeted the injured, she added.
“When we tried to move out of the city, they took away my sick brother who is aged50 . None of the journalists could bar them from taking him away.”
The Iraqi eyewitness denied US allegations that Arab fighters are stationed in the city.
“I have not seen any non-Iraqis in the city. I have only seen mortar shells fired from El-Wehda district, away from our neighborhood, targeting US tanks.”
“They (US occupiers) claim they wanted to liberate us from the resistance men, but we realize that they want to take away and kill our sons and husbands.”
The western Iraqi city has been coming under repeated US attacks under claims of harboring Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and “Arab fighters and terrorists”, but the Fallujah people have repeatedly maintained that they did not harbor the wanted man.
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-11/15/article03.shtml
I was by a cable TV recently when the movie Apocalypse Now about the Vietnam War, filmed in 1979 was showing. They had similar elements to this and the shooting of the injured person on the ground that was caught on TV, where the soldiers were all dazed and facing their own death, and so they were randomly shooting groups of civilians and having to recover when soldiers among their group were picked off.
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