Troops report Falluja 'slaughterhouses'

8.05am

FALLUJA - US and Iraqi troops battled through much of Falluja on Wednesday and said they had scattered rebel forces.

But Islamist kidnappers appeared to be holding some Iraqi soldiers.

As US and Iraqi troops took over more of the city, the head of Iraqi forces there said they had found "slaughterhouses" where other hostages had been held and killed in the past, along with records of victims and hundreds of CDs.

But Major-General Abdul-Qader Jassim did not say whether any remains had been found or if there was any clue to the fate of at least nine foreign hostages still missing.

Yet more captives appeared to have been taken when rebels released a videotape showing what they said were 20 Iraqi National Guard troops seized in Falluja.

Air strikes, shelling and mortar fire shook Falluja during intense clashes interspersed with periods of relative calm, a Reuters reporter in the Sunni Muslim city said. US forces said they bombed a mosque after coming under fire from within.

The military said US and Iraqi troops had "fought their way through half of the city, including the Jolan District, suspected of being the epicentre of insurgent activity".

The US Marine commander at Falluja, Lieutenant-General John Sattler, told reporters his opponents had been reduced to small groups, unable to co-ordinate their movements: "They are now in small pockets, blind, moving throughout the city.

"We will continue to hunt them down and destroy them."

Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and his US-backers say al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other rebels had turned Falluja into the epicentre of insurgency, from where bombings, killings and kidnappings aimed at forcing out foreigners were directed.

"We have found hostage slaughterhouses in Falluja that were used by these people and the black clothing that they used to wear to identify themselves," General Jassim told reporters.

He did not link the finds to Zarqawi, whose group has claimed several hostage beheadings.

Nor could he say if the records listed any of at least nine foreign hostages still missing: "I did not look that closely."

Among missing are British-Iraqi aid worker Margaret Hassan, Polish-Iraqi woman Teresa Borcz Khalifa, French journalists Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot and two Americans.

Apparently losing ground in Falluja, rebels staged several attacks across Iraq, some striking in their boldness.

At least five civilians were killed and 20 injured in fighting in Baiji, 180km north of Baghdad and there were running battles in the city of Mosul and parts of Baghdad.

Gunmen stopped traffic and blocked a bridge in the west of the capital, where a 48-hour closure of Baghdad International Airport was extended by another day.

Seven people were killed in a bombing in Baghdad. Two roadside bombs just to the north killed six Iraqi national guards and, separately, a US soldier. A policeman was killed and two wounded in a similar attack near Samarra.

A Turkish truck driver was killed by gunmen near Baiji.

The US military said 11 American troops and two Iraqis had been killed at Falluja since 10,000 US soldiers and Marines and 2,000 Iraqi troops launched the offensive on Monday night.

It said the city's mayor's office had been captured. Key bridges, civic buildings, mosques and weapons caches had also been seized.

The firepower raining down on Falluja must have caused civilian casualties, but no clear figures have emerged.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was "very worried" about the plight of the wounded in Falluja.

An ICRC spokesman said thousands of civilian fugitives from Falluja needed water, food, medical care and shelter. Local people say children have been among those killed.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq