Falluja residents chant anti-U.S. slogans

By Imam El-Liethy, IOL Correspondent

BAGHDAD, May 1 (IslamOnline.net) – The latest grenade attack on U.S. soldiers in the town of Falluja, 50km south of Baghdad, serves as a strong message for the U.S. occupation troops that their presence would not be tolerated, especially following their killing of 18 anti-occupation Iraq protesters over the past two days.

Some sources in the town told IslamOnline.net Thursday, May 1, that the residents gave the U.S. authorities 48 hours to pull out troops from the town’s scientific center and al-Maqamia (court compound) and demanded them not to deploy soldiers inside the town, threatening they would take up arms if they failed to heed the demands.

“If they did not leave our town, they would be regretful for that,” Dr. Hatme al-Zawti, of al-Ramadi hospital 30km from the town, told IOL, warning that the “residents were determined to carry out martyr operations against U.S. troops.”

The Falluja resident had forced the American occupation forces to evacuate the school they were using as headquarters and named it “ Martyrs School ”.

Zawti also said that Falluja is best known for its fervent religious zeal.

“When the regime of Saddam Hussein established a cinema, the people here sit it in flames. The regime was not able to open a pub or cabaret here,” he recalled.

Rumors also alleged that U.S. soldiers distributed some hardcore movies in the town to spread immorality and vice.

Earlier in the day, seven U.S. soldiers were wounded in a grenade attack at their base in the town as President George W. Bush was expected to declare that "the major combat operations" in Iraq has been completed.

U.S. troops entered the town in accordance with an agreement hammered out between the Imams of the 67 mosques and the U.S. authorities.

The agreement provides for the deployment of U.S. troops in specific places in the town, including a school, a headquarters for the former Baath party.

“We sealed this agreement to avoid fighting…We want to keep our town calm and stable,” Imam Abdullah Gar Mohammad, told IslamOnline.net.

Falluja has a population of 750,000 Sunnis in addition to a Shiite clan in the village of Bu Elwan, 15km from the town.

Provocation 

The grave of a U.S. army shooting victim is draped with the Iraqi flag in Falluja cemetery

Residents claimed that the American occupation troops also provoked their irk by making no heed to their Islamic values and traditions.

“They had the gall to peep at the families residing near their bases by their spyglasses,” charged Nouri Mohammad Mahdi.

“They were also inviting me to smoke marijuana with them…I lashed out at them and said Iraq is an Islamic country, we don’t need your rubbish,” he added.

On Monday, 28 April, 15 Iraqis were killed and about 50 wounded when U.S. occupation forces opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators in the town, who were protesting the provocative and immoral practices of the U.S. soldiers.

“We were not armed…We were just chanting ‘There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.’ Once we approached the wall of the school they (the U.S. troops) opened fire randomly,” Omar Mohammad Ismail, one of the demonstrators who survived the incident, told IOL.

“They prevented ambulances to reach the injured and we had to open the doors of our houses despite the volley of bullets…I was able to carry four of the injured into my house, albeit two of them breathed their last inside,” confirmed Mahdi.

He also added that U.S. troops stormed houses and stole valuables worth of five million Iraqi dinars.

The injured were later carried to Al-Ramadi hospital, because the town’s hospital was ill-equipped to receive the injured.

“They were shot by strange bullets that leave holes in the body and smash the bones,” testified Dr. Zawti.

“The skull of one of the martyrs was completely destroyed…I found no shrapnel in his head or even traces of the bullets, which dig a hole into the body and explode inside,” he added.

“They are using the internationally banned dumdums used by the Jews against the Palestinians,” said Raed Mohammad, a relative of one of the injured.