Truce talks resume in Iraq's Falluja amid clashes

By FADEL BADRAN

FALLUJA - Talks resumed in Falluja last night despite clashes that breached an informal truce in the town where over 600 Iraqis were reported killed in a week of battles between US Marines and Sunni rebels.

Residents heard blasts and gunfire from one area of Falluja for three hours before dawn (Falluja time) as US helicopters flew overhead. Iraqi fighters blamed the Americans for breaking the ceasefire.

They said they remained ready to meet Iraqi mediators to try to shore up the truce, which gave the battered town some respite during the weekend.

The clashes grew less intense during the morning and political sources said the ceasefire talks had restarted.

The US military has said it is prepared to "resume offensive operations" unless there is progress in the discussions, in which it is taking no direct part.

Facing the most intense resistance since they captured Baghdad a year ago, US forces are struggling to crush a stubborn Sunni insurgency in central Iraq and a new Shi'ite revolt led by cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in much of the south.

In reprisal, insurgents have kidnapped or killed more than a score of foreigners. Some hostages have been released.

In the shrine city of Kerbala, US aircraft dropped leaflets on Monday telling people to stay away from coalition bases and warning them that troops would retaliate if attacked.

"The coalition forces do not wish to harm you, but they will respond if there is an attack," said the leaflets, in Arabic.

Shi'ite militias control much of central Kerbala and Sadr's men have skirmished with Polish and Bulgarian troops on the outskirts, though they suspended "liberation operations" at the weekend when pilgrims packed the city for a religious occasion.

The US army has vowed to arrest Sadr, now thought to be in the holy city of Najaf, and destroy his Mehdi Army militia.

In recent days, American troops have been moving into Shi'ite regions of central and southern Iraq, where a Polish-led multinational force is responsible for security.

US troops have battled their way into Kut after clashes with Sadr's militia forced Ukrainian troops to leave the town.

Three Marines were killed west of Baghdad yesterday, the US military said, bringing to at least 470 the number of American troops to die in action during the Iraq conflict.

Seven Chinese were abducted yesterday but a British contractor held for six days was released. A masked man said on a videotape eight other hostages -- three Pakistanis, two Turks, an Indian, a Nepalese and a Filipino -- had been freed.

An unidentified negotiator told Japan that three kidnapped Japanese civilians were safe but still being held by guerrillas who abducted them last week, the Kyodo news agency reported.

Their captors have threatened to kill them unless Japan withdraws its troops from Iraq. Tokyo has rejected the demand.

Many Iraqis, including some members of the US-appointed Governing Council, have been shocked at the ferocity of last week's violence in Falluja, 50km west of Baghdad.

Rafa Hayad al-Issawi, director of Falluja's main hospital, said he believed more than 600 Iraqis had been killed in the town. "The number may not be absolutely accurate because many families have already buried their dead in their gardens."

The US military has reported losing 14 dead over the weekend, including the two-man crew of an Apache attack helicopter shot down near Baghdad airport.

"It was a tough week," President George W Bush said of Iraq's bloodiest period since Saddam Hussein's fall.

"I pray every day there are less casualties, but I know what we are doing in Iraq is right, right for long-term peace, right for the security of our country," he said at Fort Hood, Texas, where he prayed with US troops on Easter Sunday.

The US military said that Marines had called in air strikes on a cave near Falluja where insurgents had taken cover after firing on the Americans. It said Marines also killed a dozen fighters who ambushed a convoy near the Syrian border.

The Marines attacked rebels in Falluja last week in response to the murder and mutilation of four American private security guards ambushed in the town on March 31.

Guerrillas holding a US civilian, Thomas Hamill, said they would execute him unless the US siege of the town was lifted.

China's official Xinhua news agency quoted a Chinese diplomat as saying seven Chinese men had been kidnapped in central Iraq, probably in Falluja. They had entered Iraq via Jordan on Sunday morning.

An Italian army officer in the southern city of Nassiriya told Sky News British contractor Gary Teeley had been freed after an attack on the local office of Sadr's militia, as well as "pressure and negotiation".

The Arabic television station Al Jazeera broadcast a video tape in which a masked man said the group of eight foreign hostages, described as truck drivers, had been released.

"We have released them in response to a call from the Muslim Clerics Association... after we were sure that they will not deal with the occupation forces again," the man said.

Two Iraqi policemen were killed and two wounded on Monday by a roadside bomb aimed at their patrol in Baquba, north of Baghdad, police said.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, a mortar bomb believed to have been aimed at a US military base killed two Iraqis and wounded three on Sunday night, police said.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq