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U.S.
Marines block the entrance of the city
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FALLUJAH, Iraq, April 5 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - As
clashes between Iraqi Shiites and U.S. occupation forces witnessed
fierce confrontations in several areas, American soldiers sealed off
the Sunni city of Fallujah in a major offensive Monday, April 5.
U.S. Marines said they had launched the raid in Fallujah where the
restive town, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Baghdad, has been
sealed off and troops were only letting people enter or leave with
Fallujah license plates, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"Our concern is precise. We want to get the guys we are after.
We don't want to go in there with guns blazing," said Lieutenant
James Vanzant.
A correspondent for AFP said U.S. forces had barricaded residents
inside.
Casualties
An Iraqi witness said several people were killed and others wounded
when U.S. troops raided the Sunni Muslim town.
"U.S. forces bombed the Goland residential neighborhood after
coming under mortar attack from unknown assailants," Borhan Abed,
a resident of the northern Fallujah neighborhood told AFP by
telephone.
"Several people were killed, others
wounded and some houses hit,” said Abed, adding that he went on to
the roof of his house when the fighting started and saw U.S. aircraft
overhead.
Al-Jazeera said earlier in the day that at least
six
people were killed
and up to ten others wounded in the offensive.
Food and fuel prices had already started to soar in the blockaded
city.
The U.S.-led occupation forces said meanwhile that they had closed
the highways linking Baghdad to Jordan that run through Fallujah and
the neighboring town of Ramadi.
The roads are normally busy each day with travelers entering and
leaving Iraq.
Marine officers said the offensive would last several days and it
was not clear if they would seize the center of the flashpoint town.
One U.S. Marine was killed in fighting in the area Monday, said Lt.
Col. Gregg Olson, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.
Anti-American sentiments have been rising in the city since April,
when U.S. forces killed 16 civilians joining a peaceful protest
against the occupation of their oil-rich country.
Local inhabitants are furious over the U.S. military random
shootings and detentions as well as massive house-to-house searches,
according to Al-Jazeera.
They also wonder over the goal of the occupation - now in its
second year with no weapons of mass destruction, the main
justification for the invasion, have been found.
The U.S. occupation commanders
have
vowed a painful response after Iraqis killed four American security
contractors in the city Wednesday, March 31.
An Iraqi mob afterwards dragged their corpses through the streets
and hanged two of them from a bridge in scenes that showed the depth
of anti-occupation sentiment in the conflictive city.
The scenes were condemned, however, by Muslim scholars inside and
outside Iraq as the practice of mutilating bodies is strictly
prohibited in Islam under any circumstances.
Fallujah leaders vowed Sunday that they would turn their city into
a graveyard for the Americans if they stormed it.
"Every foreigner in Fallujah is a target," Fallujah's
chief administrator, Fawzi Shaf Al-Aifan, told reporters.
"The resistance attacks are legitimate."
