Hundreds of American soldiers swept through Falluja yesterday in a further, apparently more precise, operation against guerrilla resistance. Eight men were arrested.
Last week soldiers arrested 400 people in Duluiyah, north of Baghdad,”to capture or destroy terrorist elements”, but by the end of the week all but 60 had been released without charge.
US officials then claimed that 27 members of an ”organised group” which attacked a tank convoy in the village of al-Hir early on Friday had been killed. It now seems that only seven men died, five of them apparently innocent farmers.
Last week US jets bombed a camp in Rawa, near the Syrian border, killing 70 people, who appeared to be guerrillas, and destroying dozens of crates of weapons.
These operations are highlighting the complexities facing the US forces as they shift from combat to policing a heavily armed country, and try to root out a small but determined guerrilla force.
Last night, the US troops faced resistance in the form of an ambush. A military convoy was attacked on a highway near Balad. A truck was set ablaze, apparently after being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. A Reuters correspondent, Khaled Yacoub Oweis, said US Apache helicopters were flying in the area and tanks and armoured personnel carriers were at the spot, about 96 kilometres north of Baghdad. Soldiers said several casualties had been evacuated.
Earlier yesterday, at 2am, more than 1 300 soldiers, backed by helicopters and tanks, entered Falluja. They raided farmhouses north-west of the town, arresting seven people. Another was arrested for violating the curfew.
Soldiers delivered food, school books, medicine, and toys, to win the support of the deeply conservative Sunni Muslim town. Yesterday an army ”psychological operations team” in Humvees fitted with loudspeakers toured the town trying to explain the raid.
The announcement said: ”Coalition forces arrested resistance fighters loyal to the Ba’ath and the fedayeen. These people were a threat and danger to the security of the people in Falluja and the coalition force. Arresting these wanted men makes Falluja safer.”
The message encouraged former soldiers to go to the mayor’s office to apply for jobs in the new Iraqi army.
In public at least, few of the townspeople appeared convinced. ”Under our law you are innocent until proved guilty but the Americans punish us before we are found guilty,” said Khalaf Abid Shabibh (82).
He and his four sons were released on Thursday after 10 days in US custody, accused of allowing Saddam Hussein or his family to hide in their house. ”I’ve never met Saddam, I’m just an ordinary merchant. These Americans are savages. They should know that violence creates violence.”
On Saturday hundreds from the Khazraji tribe, one of the few Shia tribes in this Sunni-dominated area, gathered at a farmhouse in al-Hir to mourn the death of five farmers shot dead by Americans on Friday. Villagers said two men attacked tanks near the village and they were killed. But in the exchange of fire the tanks machine-gunned five others who lived in a nearby farmhouse.
Relatives said the first shots killed Ali Jassam Abbas (75) who was sleeping in a tent in his sunflower fields. Four of his sons and his grandson heard the shots and went running towards him. They too were shot.
The brothers Hamza Ali (35) Abid Ali (32) and Amr Ali (31) and Abbas’ grandson Qasim Jabbar (20) were killed. The fourth brother, Mazhar Ali, was badly injured in the leg.
Their cousin Saad Hashim Atyia (43) said: ”When they started running the Americans started shooting.”
An officer went to the family home later to apologise.
”He apologised, but we do not accept that. At the beginning we were pleased the Americans came to Iraq. But now they are not fulfilling their promises.” – Guardian Unlimited Â