Aid convoy reaches Falluja

10.30am

FALLUJA, IRAQ - An Iraqi Red Crescent convoy reached Falluja on Saturday with the first aid since US-led forces began to blast their way in five days ago, and Iraqi officials said only pockets of rebel resistance remained.

The offensive on Falluja has fuelled violence across Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland, especially in the northern city of Mosul where guerrillas fought on and kept control of some districts.

The US-backed interim government said Baghdad's international airport, initially closed on Monday night for 48 hours, would remain shut indefinitely.

"Conditions in Falluja are catastrophic," said Red Crescent spokeswoman Firdoos al-Abadi, whose organisation says there are severe shortages of food and medicine in the city.

Abadi said the Red Crescent's five trucks and three ambulances had arrived at the main hospital on the western edge of Falluja, some 50km west of Baghdad.

It is unclear how many of Falluja's 300,000 people remain in the city, but about half are believed to have fled before the ground assault began on Monday. There has also been no firm word on civilian casualties.

National Security Minister of State Kasim Daoud said more than 1000 guerrillas had been killed in Falluja, which the US-backed interim government and Washington say has been a base for Saddam Hussein supporters and foreign Islamic fighters.

"Around 200 have been arrested," he told a news conference. "The operations are almost over. There are only pockets of resistance left."

Islamist groups, including one led by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, vowed in a video to take their fight in Falluja to all corners of Iraq. No independent verification of the tape's authenticity was immediately available.

"In response to the crimes and mass annihilation the Muslims of Falluja are facing, the groups Qaeda Organisation of Jihad in Iraq, the Islamic Army, the 1920 Revolution Brigades ... announce the spread of the battle to all governorates and parts of Iraq," one gunman read from a handwritten piece of paper.

He called on employees of the interim government not to go to work and to launch a civil disobedience campaign.

US President George W Bush warned guerrilla violence in Iraq could worsen, despite the Falluja operation, in the countdown to planned nationwide elections in January.

"The desperation of the killers will grow, and the violence could escalate. The success of democracy in Iraq would be a crushing blow to the forces of terror, and the terrorists know it," said Bush.

US Major Clark Watson said American Marines expected to overcome Falluja rebels in their last main redoubt, the Shuhada area in the south of the city, within 72 hours.

He said US forces were facing tough resistance from Syrian, Chechen and other foreign fighters in the area, but had killed about 100 since they pushed in on Saturday.

The US military said 22 US and five Iraqi soldiers had been killed and 170 US troops wounded in the Falluja battle.

Civilians still in the city stay indoors, scared by the noise of battle, said an Iraqi journalist who left on Friday.

The city had been without power and water for days, said the journalist, who asked not to be named.

"Some people hadn't prepared well. They didn't stock up on tinned food. They didn't think it would be this bad," he said.

In Mosul, gunmen were still roaming the streets in some districts after storming and looting nine police stations on Thursday, but Iraqi and US forces were guarding some of the key bridges that span the Tigris River, residents said.

The US military said the city was calmer on Saturday, with only sporadic fighting in some areas. It said three of five Tigris bridges had reopened and a curfew had been lifted.

In other districts, vigilantes set up roadblocks and patrolled neighbourhoods to deter thieves and looters.

The interim government has vowed to crush rebels so Iraqis can vote in the January elections, but the Falluja assault and a week-old state of emergency have failed to quell unrest in other Sunni cities, many of which are under curfew.

The government closed Baghdad airport last Sunday before the start of the Falluja offensive.

The closure, covering civilian flights, was to have been in place for a few days only, but an official in Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's office said on Saturday: "It is closed until further notice."

The government, however, reopened two border crossings with Syria and Jordan for festivities marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq