Residential buildings, hospitals and mosques have all been bombed, and American troops are engaging in a house-to-house search of whatever remains. Tens of thousands of civilians remain in Fallujah, a medium-sized city near Baghdad that is normally home to 300,000 people.
A New York Times reporter “embedded” with US troops described the onslaught: “Just before the marines began to push south into Falluja, the American bombardment intensified, and heavy artillery could be heard pounding positions in or near the city every few minutes. An entire apartment complex was ground to rubble. A train station was obliterated in a hail of 2,000-pound bombs. All electrical power in the city was cut off about 5 p.m.”
The account passes over without comment the destruction of an apartment complex and train station—both civilian structures.
For the thousands of civilians who remain in Fallujah, there is nowhere to hide from the American blitzkreig. They risk being buried alive by staying in their homes during the unending bombing raids, and if they venture outside they face almost certain death at the hands of American troops and snipers, who have fought their way into the city center.
According to Quil Lawrence, a BBC correspondent embedded with troops in Fallujah, “There must be many [Iraqi] casualties considering the amount of gunfire I’ve seen. The Americans launch about 500 rounds to the insurgents’ one, pelleting the insurgent area.”
Aside from the American and British journalists accompanying the invading troops, there are only a handful of Iraqi journalists reporting on the fighting from inside the city. According to Al Jazeera, one of these journalists reported that shortly after the invasion began, US planes bombed a government health clinic that had been treating wounded insurgents and civilians in the center of Fallujah, killing both patients and staff.
Bakr al-Dulaimi told Al Jazeera that the bombings targeted everything in the city including the hospital, houses and cars. “Al Dulaimi said the hospital’s staff, doctors and patients have all fallen victim to the assault.”
According to Al Jazeera, “Residents said smoke was rising from the whole city as it shook to constant explosions. Civilians were huddled in their homes and there was no word on casualties...An AFP [Agence France-Presse] reporter in Jolan [a district of Fallujah] said one building in every 10 had been flattened. As US-led troops closed in on the neighborhood overnight, at least four 2,000 pound (900-kilogram) bombs were dropped on the city’s northwest.”
The network quoted Muhammad Abbud, who said he was forced to watch his nine-year-old son Ghaith bleed to death because the family could not take him to the hospital while bombs continued to fall on the city and gunfire poured into their neighborhood from US tanks and planes.
“My son got shrapnel in his stomach when our house was hit at dawn, but we couldn’t take him for treatment,” said Abbud, a schoolteacher. “We buried him in the garden because it was too dangerous to go out.”
On Monday, the US took control of Fallujah’s main hospital outside the city center in order to prevent doctors there from reporting on the level of civilian casualties. Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor at the hospital who managed to escape arrest by American troops, told Reuters that there were very few medical supplies and clinics open to treat the injured.
“There is not a single surgeon in Fallujah,” Al Jumaili said. “We had one ambulance hit by US fire and a doctor wounded. There are scores of injured civilians in their homes whom we can’t reach. A 13-year-old child just died in my hands.”
Patients in the hospital were handcuffed and dragged out of their rooms for examination by troops. The US puppet, Prime Minister Allawi, has reportedly said that forces entering the hospital had “captured four foreigners and killed 38 persons.”
The International Committee for the Red Cross issued a statement saying that it was “deeply concerned about reports that the injured cannot receive adequate medical care” in Fallujah.
No one is being permitted to leave the city as the US military carries out the slaughter. A ring of US and British soldiers has been set up around the city. US Colonel Michael Formica told the Associated Press that this was necessary to prevent any insurgents from escaping dressed in civilian clothing.
“My concern now is only one: not to allow the enemy to escape,” he said. “I do not want these guys to get out of here. I want them killed or captured as they flee.”
The US actions in Fallujah are not only a moral outrage, they are a direct violation of international law, which prohibits indiscriminate attacks on civilian centers. According to Additional Protocol 1 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, “Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/nov20 ... -n10.shtml
AUN all the muslims who died
now these citizens fight for their lives
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