Iraq rebels hit back as US bombs Falluja

10.20am

FALLUJA, Iraq - US forces hit Iraq's rebel stronghold of Falluja with the fiercest air and ground bombardment in months, as insurgents struck back on Saturday with attacks that killed up to 37 people in Samarra.

The Falluja strikes, before a threatened major assault on Saddam Hussein loyalists and militants allied to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, destroyed a hospital, a medical warehouse and dozens of homes, dazed residents said after a sleepless night.

Hospital staff said ambulances had been unable to go out as the city shook to explosions. Later, they collected two dead and seven wounded civilians, among them women and children.

With a US-led offensive on Falluja apparently imminent, rebels hit back with attacks in Samarra, Baghdad and Ramadi, another rebel-held city.

The deadliest assaults were in Samarra, where a suicide car bomber rammed into a police station and three car bombs exploded elsewhere. Insurgents also attacked three other police stations.

Police said the onslaught killed 34 people -- 19 Iraqi police, two Iraqi National Guards, two members of an Iraqi Rapid Reaction Force and 11 civilians. They said 43 people had been wounded, 28 of them members of the security forces.

"I saw a car trying to reach the town hall," said bookshop owner Mohammed Ahmed. "When police stopped it, it exploded."

Separately, police said rebels shot dead another policeman and are suspected of firing a mortar that killed a woman and a young boy in a house near a US base in the city.

US and Iraqi forces stormed Samarra a month ago to dislodge rebels in what was seen as a prelude to the full-scale assault on rebel-held areas ahead of Jan. 27 elections.

An Iraqi military commander deserted US forces hours after he received a full briefing on US military plans to storm Falluja, CNN reported on Saturday.

But the pool report sent to Reuters from a Marine unit quoted US officers as saying the desertion of the unidentified captain, a Kurdish company commander would not change plans to retake the city.

MARINES TARGETED

A Marine spokesman said an attack on a US convoy wounded 16 Marines in Ramadi, 68 miles west of Baghdad. A police source said it had been a car bomb blast.

Hospital staff said at least one Iraqi was killed and 14 wounded in clashes between rebels and US forces in the city.

Insurgents also battled US troops near a highway just north of Falluja and American planes bombed targets on the northern edge of the city, witnesses said.

In Baghdad, a big explosion struck the main airport road, killing an Iraqi civilian and wounding another and three US soldiers. Four blasts rocked central Baghdad on Saturday night, witnesses said. But no details were immediately available.

In Falluja, residents said the overnight bombardment had reduced a small Saudi-funded hospital to rubble.

Only its facade, with a sign reading Nazzal Emergency Hospital, remained intact. Reuters photographs showed blue surgical cloths and empty medicine boxes amid the ruins.

A nearby compound used by the main Falluja Hospital to store medical supplies was also destroyed, witnesses said.

Most of the city's 300,000 people have already fled. After Friday night's barrage, many more streamed out of the city to the northwest on the only road left open by US forces.

"I left the city two days ago, but my heart is still in Falluja," said Abu Mohammed, who had taken his family to stay with relatives near the city. "We are living in terror."

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned an attack on Falluja could undermine the elections, but his comments drew a chilly response from interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

Annan criticized the expected assault in letters to Allawi, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, saying it would spark more Iraqi anger and damage the credibility of the nationwide January elections.

Allawi, due back in Baghdad soon after a trip to Europe, told the BBC Annan's letter was confused and unclear.

Allawi says Falluja is a haven for former Saddam fighters and militants led by Zarqawi's group, an ally of al Qaeda which claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing on Thursday that killed three British troops south of Baghdad.

Ramadi police said the bodies of two hostages, a Sudanese and an Iraqi, were found on the banks of the Euphrates on Saturday.

They had been shot dead. They have not been identified, but only one Sudanese, a translator, was known to be among the more than 25 foreigners being held in Iraq.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq