Over a seven-day period in mid-October, more than 200 Iraqis were reportedly killed around the country, most of them civilians, including scores in Fallujah. More than half died in suicide and other such bombings by anti-government groups, according to media accounts.

The U.S.-led assault on Fallujah is part of joint operations between U.S. forces and the Iraqi military to bring under the authority of the Allawi government more than 30 cities and towns where militias opposed to the U.S.-led occupation have been operating with little opposition. These operations began with the takeover of Samarra, also in the Sunni Triangle, on October 3. The goal of the attacking Iraqi and U.S. troops is to take control of as many of these areas as possible before elections scheduled for early next year.

The Sunni Triangle is an area of central Iraq where the former Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein had a strong base.

More than 1,000 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers have surrounded Fallujah, according to Al-Jazeera TV. At the east and northeastern gates of the city, U.S. tanks have been bombarding homes and other buildings in neighborhoods that reportedly have been strongholds of militias. The Associated Press reported that the U.S. military has asked UK defense minister Geoff Hoon to redeploy more than 650 British troops to the area to back U.S. and Iraqi forces surrounding the city.

A report in the October 17 Armed Forces Information Service (AFIS), a Pentagon news service, said Iraqi Special Forces and elements of the First Marine Expeditionary Force formed a “dynamic cordon” around the city starting October 15. It also said that U.S. warplanes blasted a checkpoint set up by Tawhid and Jihad militiamen. The AFIS report said that informants have “linked such checkpoints to kidnappings and executions carried out by insurgents.” The report also claimed that Iraqi and U.S. troops have recovered stockpiles of explosives and captured several of al-Zarqawi’s aides.

Tawhid and Jihad has claimed responsibility for numerous kidnappings and has publicized the beheading of their captives on the Internet. It has also claimed responsibility for car bombing attacks against U.S. and Iraqi troops and police that have also resulted in the death of civilians—in one case 35 Iraqi children who were receiving candy from U.S. troops.

Given growing revulsion among Iraqis against such methods, and taking advantage of the fact that the main leader of Tawhid and Jihad is from another country, the interim government and its U.S. backers are trying to drive a wedge between the pro-Zarqawi forces and Fallujah’s main Sunni Muslim leaders. And they are scoring successes so far.

Military operations against militias in the city were stepped up after negotiations with Sunni Muslim clerics in the city broke down October 14. The next day U.S. troops arrested the main Sunni cleric negotiator, Khaled al-Jumeili, as he left a mosque after Friday prayers in a village about 10 miles south of Fallujah. The Iraqi interim government released Al-Jumeili a few days later.

During recent sermons in mosques throughout the Sunni Triangle clerics read a statement declaring that al-Zarqawi’s presence in the city “is a lie just like the weapons of mass destruction lie,” according to an AP report.

In Ramadi, with the assistance of informants, U.S. Marines arrested 17 alleged insurgents said to be leaders of a militia in the city. U.S. officials in Iraq have said their goal is to “pacify” Ramadi and Fallujah before elections next year.

There have also been press reports of clashes between U.S. troops in Qaim, a city near the Jordanian border also said to be a stronghold for opponents of the Allawi regime and a major route through which they obtain weapons. U.S. and Iraqi troops are also fighting militias in al-Anbar province, Rutba, and Hiyt, according to Al-Jazeera.

The joint military operations by U.S. and Iraqi troops register the progress Washington is making in recruiting, training, and bloodying a new Iraqi army. U.S. president George Bush and defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld have said the administration’s goal is to train as many as 200,000 Iraqi troops that can increasingly take on more of the fighting against adversaries.

The Allawi regime has so far been unable to obtain a settlement of the type agreed to with Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Members of al-Sadr’s Mahdi militia began handing over their weapons to the government October 11. The Mahdi militia has taken heavy casualties in fierce fighting with U.S. Marines that began last April in the Shia cities of Najaf, Karbala, and Kufa.

In another development, Staff Sgt. Michael Butler and most of his platoon, another 18 U.S. soldiers, refused orders by superiors to deliver a fuel shipment from the Talil air base near Nasirya, Iraq, to another base in the north. The troops said this would have been a “suicide mission,” because the trucks were in bad shape and they would have to drive them without any escorts by armored vehicles. Butler and the other troops are now under investigation for insubordination.
 
 
Related articles:
In Romania, NATO OKs merging two military missions in Afghanistan  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home