Iraq rebels hit back amid Falluja battles

1.00pm

FALLUJA, Iraq - US troops fought to crush resistance in the Iraqi city of Falluja, but rebels hit back with an armed rampage in Mosul and a car bomb that killed 17 people in a crowded Baghdad street.

Marines met little opposition in the former insurgent stronghold of Jolan, in northwest Falluja, where guerrillas fired only one or two mortar rounds as tanks pushed through alleys, according to a Reuters reporter at the scene.

But a huge blast sent a fireball into the sky after dark.

Marines had to call in four air strikes after taking heavy fire at their headquarters in central Falluja, the BBC reported. Its correspondent with the Marines said a rifle company had come under continuous fire when it pushed out of the base into the city on a house-to-house search for insurgents.

Jolan, a stronghold for Saddam Hussein loyalists, had seen some of the fiercest fighting of this week's US-led offensive in the Sunni Muslim city, 50 km west of Baghdad.

"Things are going, I think, as planned. We've got about 70 per cent of the city under control," US General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CBS television.

Eighteen US and five Iraqi soldiers have died since the assault began on Monday and 178 US soldiers have been wounded, the military said in a statement in Baghdad.

Two planes ferried 102 seriously wounded soldiers from Iraq to the main US military hospital in Germany on Thursday, joining 125 who arrived between Monday and Wednesday, a spokeswoman said.

"This is one of our peak periods. We are very busy. It is more than we have seen in the last couple of months because we used to admit about 30 patients a day," hospital spokeswoman Marie Shaw said.



HELICOPTERS DOWNED

An estimated 600 rebels have died in the Falluja offensive so far, but the figure had not been confirmed, spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Boylan said in Baghdad.

Rebels downed two US Cobra helicopters near Falluja on Thursday, the military said. The pilots and crew were unhurt.

The assault has provoked an upsurge in violence elsewhere, as happened in April during an earlier failed US attempt to subdue Iraq's most rebellious city.

The late morning car bomb that killed 17 people in central Baghdad also wounded at least 20, a police source said.

Rebels took to the streets of the northen town of Baiji, home to Iraq's main refinery, and fought with security forces.

And insurgents in the northern city of Mosul set police stations ablaze, stole weapons and brazenly roamed the streets.

Residents said Iraq's third largest city seemed to slide out of control as grenade blasts and gunfire rang through empty streets and smoke billowed from two burning police stations.

Rebels attacked Iraqi national guards controlling a bridge in the city centre, killing five of them, witnesses said.

A cameraman for Reuters filmed gunmen raiding weapons and flak jackets from a police station before setting it on fire.

"It's crazy, really, really crazy," said Abdallah Fathi, a resident who saw one police station attack.

The US military in a statement said local security forces had been overrun in several areas, but added that local authorities were doing all they could to restore order.

A photographer working for Reuters was shot in the leg. Doctors said one civilian had been killed and at least 25 wounded in the past two days of fighting.

Apparently responding to the Falluja offensive, insurgents have also staged attacks this week in the Sunni towns and cities of Samarra, Baiji, Baquba, Tikrit, Ramadi and parts of Baghdad.

Six national guards were killed near Tikrit, Saddam's home town, by a roadside bomb on Wednesday night, witnesses said.

In Falluja, residents said the stench of decomposing bodies hung over the city, power and water supplies were cut and food was running out for thousands of trapped civilians.

Iraqi aid groups delivered food and medicine to refugees sheltering in Habbaniya, west of Falluja, on Thursday and hope to reach Falluja on Friday for the first time.

About 10,000 US troops, backed by 2,000 Iraqi government troops, are engaged in the battle for Falluja.

Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who ordered the assault, has come under intense personal pressure from Islamist militants who kidnapped three of his relatives on Tuesday.

The militants have threatened to behead Allawi's 75-year-old cousin Ghazi and two women relatives unless he calls off the assault. The government has said its policy will not change.

Weeping relatives of one of the hostages said on a videotape aired by Lebanon's LBC television that she was nine months pregnant and begged her captors to free her.

Allawi and his US backers have vowed to pacify Falluja and the rest of the country before elections due in January.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq