U.S. Marines are facing hard times in Fallujah (AFP)

BAGHDAD, April 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The U.S. occupation military is detaining some 200 Iraqi civil defense soldiers, who refused to take part in the massive U.S. offensive against the western town of Fallujah, an Iraqi soldier revealed Friday, April 16.

Ali Al-Shamari, who managed to make escape, told Reuters that his 36th Security Brigade refused en masse to fight against their own people.

"They told us to attack the city and we were astonished. How could an Iraqi fight an Iraqi like this? This meant that nothing had changed from the Saddam Hussein days. We refused en masse," said Shamari.

He said they did not know they were heading to the restive town, under a crippling U.S. siege since April 5, until they arrived there.

After the brigade refused to fight, Shamari added, soldiers were stripped of their badges, confined to tents in a U.S. base on the outskirts of Fallujah and had their rations restricted to one meal per day.

"I escaped, but around 200 of our comrades remain there. We demand their release," Shamari said.

The 36th brigade comprises 340 soldiers from the former Iraqi army and the Peshmerga, the Kurdish militia.

It has been assigned primarily to security tasks such as conducting searches and guarding buildings.

U.S. military officers declined to confirm the incident, but said that a "command failure" had taken place during the Fallujah offensive.

At least 15 people were killed and 20 others injured early Friday in a fresh U.S. raid into the town, home to some 300,000 residents.

Overwhelming Firepower 

Bukhtiar Saleh, a Kurdish soldier, said U.S. heavy-handedness and overwhelming firepower had discouraged him from fighting.

"They were bombing the city with warplanes and using cluster bombs. I could not be a part of this," he told Reuters.

Abdel Salam Al-Kubeisi, member of the Sunni Muslim Scholars Association in Iraq, said Friday at a press conference that the U.S. occupation troops shelled the town with cluster bombs, describing the situation as "very serious".

Aljazeera online edition further quoted locals as saying that the town was shelled with destructive B-52 bombs, used by the U.S. troops to shell rugged areas in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ali Hussein, a Shiite soldier, told Reuters that the soldiers felt sympathy for their fellow ones in Fallujah.

"Suddenly we were asked to take part in a huge offensive," Hussein said, adding he could not take part in bombing his Sunni brothers.

Press reports revealed earlier in the month that Shiites have fought alongside fellow Sunni compatriots in the Baghdad district of Al-Azamiya in die-hard battles against U.S. forces, in the first joint resistance operation against the U.S.-led occupation.

The Washington Post reported Sunday, April 11, that the Second Brigade of the new Iraqi army had defied U.S. orders of supporting Marines in their Fallujah sweep.

The paper quoted a senior U.S. military official as saying that between 25 to 30 percent of the new Iraqi army, civil defense corps and police had resigned for refusing to battle their fellowmen.

U.S. occupation troops breached Tuesday, April 13, the ceasefire reached days ago in Fallujah, killing at least nine Iraqis and wounding up to 38 others.

The U.S. offensive has claimed the lives of at least 600 Iraqis, mostly women and children, and left up to 1500 others injured, according to medics in the besieged town.

The Iraqi Red Crescent has been preparing a camp for thousands of Iraqi families who fled the bitter fighting.

Human rights groups and several leading Iraqi politicians have denounced the U.S. action in Fallujah, calling it a collective punishment measure.

There are reports that U.S. military and civilian officials met Friday with leaders from Fallujah, the first known direct negotiations since the start of the siege.