[Media-watch] Suicide squads await US troops' assault on Falluja - Sunday Times - 7/11/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

A  fairly long (sorry) report form "the only western newspaper reporter in 
Falluja last week".
JA
_________________________

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1348213,00.html


      November 07, 2004

      Battle for Falluja

      Suicide squads await US troops' assault on Falluja
      Hala Jaber



SCORES of suicide bombers have been primed to defend Falluja against an 
imminent onslaught by American and Iraqi forces, according to insurgents' 
commanders planning a ferocious counterattack.
More than 100 cars laden with high explosives have been distributed 
throughout the city to be detonated when US marines mount a long-awaited 
ground offensive, they claim.

One commander said that 300 foreign fighters had volunteered for suicide 
bombings as American forces laid siege to the stronghold of Abu Musab 
al-Zarqawi, America's most wanted man in Iraq.
Some would be used in 118 vehicles already rigged with explosives, he said; 
others would be waiting in booby-trapped homes for American and Iraqi 
soldiers hunting from house to house for al-Zarqawi's fighters.

It was impossible to verify such claims, but as the only western newspaper 
reporter in Falluja last week, I saw thick black cables running across roads 
to the city centre, indicating the sites of "improvised explosive devices" - 
home-made bombs intended for American convoys.

A commander pointed out bridges, a railway track and several networks of 
narrow alleys in three districts of the city, saying they had been mined.

Snipers have been recruited by Falluja's commanders from other cities and 
were already in position this weekend.

The insurgents said they had surface-to-air missiles with which to counter 
attacks by helicopter gunships.

They also claimed that a number of missiles had been tipped with deadly 
chemicals including cyanide. One said these would be fired at American 
forces from their rear.

"We have created a rear position, mainly outside Falluja, that will provide 
assistance to the fighters inside once the battle starts," the commander 
said.

The battle for Falluja is regarded as a decisive test of the ability of 
American and Iraqi forces to quell the insurgents of the "Sunni triangle" to 
the north and west of Baghdad in time for elections in the new year.

Early yesterday a column of armoured vehicles moved into the outskirts in a 
manoeuvre designed to draw out rebels and provide fresh targets for the air 
power and artillery.

In the most intensive airstrikes on Falluja for months, a small Saudi-funded 
hospital and medical warehouse were hit, killing at least two people.

The insurgents struck back against US troops on a road to the north of the 
city, where fierce fighting was reported. A suicide car bomb attack on the 
2nd Infantry Division in the nearby town of Ramadi wounded 20 soldiers.

The biggest attacks of the day, however, came in Samarra, north of Baghdad, 
where at least 33 people died. Two explosions occurred outside the mayor's 
office and an American convoy heading towards the scene was hit. Militants 
then stormed three police stations.

 Falluja has been the prime target of the coalition since it was taken over 
last summer by local insurgents and foreign militants, including the kidnap 
and beheading gangs of the infamous al-Zarqawi. The gangs' presence has made 
Falluja a no-go area for western media organisations. The last four Arab 
media organisations also abandoned it last week after threats by insurgents 
who accused them of being biased towards coalition forces.

My journey to the besieged city last week was therefore not only long and 
circuitous but also nerve-jangling. I was driven there by the younger 
brother of one of the insurgents' commanders who had guaranteed our security 
as far as possible.

Our contacts warned us to keep a low profile and avoid foreign militants. We 
needed no encouragement to do so. The main road to Falluja was strewn here 
and there with the charred remains of American tanks and other vehicles 
burnt long ago and never cleared away. Long convoys of tanks and troops were 
moving rapidly towards the city.

Civilians' cars like mine were halted well away from the convoys by nervous 
soldiers waving their weapons to safeguard the vehicles' route from the 
threat of suicide bombers.

We drove along a series of bumpy sand roads to a checkpoint manned by masked 
men at the edge of the city. To our relief we were waved through without any 
interrogation.

The districts comprising Falluja's perimeter - where most of the insurgents 
are concentrated - were already largely in ruins. The crumbling remains of 
houses and shell-pocked walls reminded me of my home town Beirut in the 
1980s at the height of Lebanon's civil war.

Street after street stood empty. The heavy metal gates at the entrances to 
most houses of any size were locked, the occupants' cars missing from their 
usual places on the pavements outside.

Towards the city centre we saw old men sitting in a handful of shops, 
killing time during the fasting hours of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan 
rather than entertaining any notions of business. A food market that is 
usually heaving with bustling shoppers was deserted.

An even more incongruous sight awaited us at a large road junction: despite 
the gravity of the crisis and the dearth of vehicles, traffic policemen sat 
on chairs at the roadside, gazing idly into the distance.

Many of the fighters could be distinguished from the civilians by their long 
wispy beards in the style of Osama Bin Laden.

Falluja has been a centre of anti-American activity ever since last year's 
invasion. After a bloody but inconclusive three-week battle last April, 
American marines withdrew and an Iraqi force was installed to cleanse the 
city of insurgents. They merely infiltrated the force and regained control.

Since then, US officials say, Falluja has become the base of the 
Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi, who has masterminded the wave of car bombings, 
kidnappings and murders - including that of the British engineer, Ken 
Bigley - that has spread terror throughout so much of Iraq.

Both the US-led coalition and Iyad Allawi, Iraq's interim prime minister, 
regard control of Falluja as critical to the restoration of security.

The sheikhs of Falluja blame Allawi for failed negotiations to avert an 
attack on the city. They claim that he initially agreed to let them drive 
out the foreign fighters but later insisted that American troops should be 
sent in to help Iraqi national guards search for them from house to house.

"The drums of war have now sounded and not even Allawi has the power to stop 
it from happening," said a source close to the talks.

 As Allawi admitted that the window of opportunity for a peaceful settlement 
was closing, Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general, warned on 
Friday that an assault on Falluja could undermine the January elections by 
deepening Iraq's divisions.

In Falluja itself, where during my last visit in September I found a power 
struggle under way between local insurgents and the militants coming in from 
outside, the divisions appeared this weekend to have been bridged.

A military committee of former Iraqi army officers has been liaising with 
various groups of insurgents to plan the defence of the city. Morale was 
high among those waiting to fight and they spoke of having Allah on their 
side in the battle ahead.

As the tension among ordinary civilians increased, American forces used 
loudspeakers and leaflets to warn that women and children should go, but 
that any man under 45 trying to enter or leave the city would be detained. 
The forces also asked for help in capturing terrorists.

Nobody doubted that much blood would be spilt in the so-called "city of 
mosques". Trenches have been dug in Falluja's cemeteries in preparation for 
hurried burials of "martyrs" in white shrouds.

Hospitals and makeshift clinics were on high alert yesterday, but doctors 
were already complaining that they were short of medicines. They appealed 
for antibiotics, surgical sutures and intravenous drugs needed for 
post-operative care.

Plans had been made for us to stay in a makeshift hospital near a mosque, 
but a local commander judged the risk of abduction from there to be too 
great. Instead I was directed with Ali Rifaat, the Sunday Times reporter in 
Iraq, to a private house in a row where each property was occupied by one 
man who had stayed to protect it. The only condition was that I should cook 
the men a meal in time for the end of their Ramadan fast.

After dining on two pots of rice mixed with tomato paste, onions and 
aubergines, a dish of potatoes and some fatty lumps of slowly fried meat, we 
sat on thin mattresses spread over the floor to await the nightly 
bombardment.

It was just after midnight when the first bomb crashed to earth half a mile 
from the house. A minute later a second bomb landed within a few hundred 
yards and jolted me in my chair, to the amusement of my hosts.

"Brace yourself," said one of the men. "This is just beginning."

I began to count out loud as the bombs tumbled to the ground with 
increasingly monotonous regularity. There were 38 in the first half-hour 
alone.

The bombing continued in waves until 5.15am as the American forces softened 
up their targets, perhaps trying to draw anti-aircraft fire that would help 
them to identify enemy positions.

The insurgents did not respond to the bombs, nor to the crackle of fire from 
an AC-130 Spectre gunship, one of the most fearsome weapons in the US 
armoury, whose 25mm Gatling guns can fire up to 1,800 rounds a minute.

The gunship circled in the night sky, raining a torrent of bullets down on 
buildings and streets nearby. Few if any fighters were out on the streets, 
but as a show of force it was devastatingly effective.

Earlier the buzz of US drones, known to locals as "the flies", mingled with 
the sound of television commentators still analysing the results of the 
American elections.

 The 50,000 people thought to have stayed in Falluja knew the results had 
probably helped to determine the timing of the assault. The victory of 
President George W Bush, they reasoned, meant it would come sooner rather 
than later.

As the night wore on, some of the men sat around the computer watching 
videos of "resistance actions" as the bombs continued to shake their city.

One piece of footage repeated over and over again was of a young fighter 
from the Mahdi army of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shi-ite cleric. He was 
trying to fire a rocket-propelled grenade against an American position from 
the middle of an empty square in the Shi'ite suburb of Sadr City in Baghdad.

As the young fighter was crouching on the ground, a sniper's bullet hit him 
in the leg. He faltered but attempted to fire his renade anyway. Another 
bullet was fired into his head, his body jerked and he slumped to the ground 
dead.

The men watching this film, although not fighters themselves, analysed his 
actions and the quick reactions of the sniper much as a group of youths 
might replay a controversial moment in a football match. They concluded that 
the Shi'ite was an amateur compared with the Sunni insurgents who would soon 
be squaring up to the American marines in Falluja.

"The Shi'ites are not as well trained as our fighters here in Falluja," said 
Muhanad, a car mechanic. "Ours are professionals and the Americans will soon 
learn their lesson."

The men moved on to other clips showing attacks by al- Zarqawi's Tawheed 
wal-Jihad group. One, filmed from a distance, showed a suicide bomber 
ramming his car into an American convoy in a burst of orange flame.

The men were satisfied with the "quality" of the attack but thought the film 
lacked the professionalism to be expected of a group with a well funded 
media and propaganda department.

Alaa, a computer programmer, said Tawheed wal-Jihad had offered him a job in 
this department but he had turned it down. "I did not want to be involved 
with any group, let alone them," he said.

His friends moved on to watch a series of still pictures of various 
 "martyrs" - both civilians and fighters - discussing each case and the 
circumstance of their deaths.

When they were bored with watching the endless deaths on the tape, the men 
played video games as the bombardment continued.

A heated discussion ensued about al-Zarqawi when Mohammed, the commander's 
brother, claimed that he was not even in Iraq, let alone in Falluja.

"We all know who the Tawheed's main commander in Falluja is," he said, to a 
chorus of "Omar Hadid".

Hadid, a former electrical engineer, is viewed by the Americans as "a home 
town hero" who leads a force of 1,000 to 1,500, including many Syrian and 
Jordanian fighters. Its aim is to evict American forces from Iraq.

According to Mohammed and Alaa, Hadid fled Saddam Hussein's Iraq after being 
pursued on murder charges. He went first to Syria, then to Saudi Arabia, 
returning to Falluja at the end of the war.

 His friends sent fighters from Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan and asked him 
to introduce them to Iraqi insurgents.

He fought US forces in the April offensive on Falluja and then joined 
al-Zarqawi's group, rising to become its commander in the city. "You wouldn't 
believe it if you saw him," said Mohammed, who had seen Hadid manning a 
checkpoint last week. "He is a really simple man, a quiet person who says 
very little generally."

Alaa insisted: "Whether al-Zarqawi lives in Iraq, or not, does not matter. 
The fact is that he does not live in Falluja as the Americans and Allawi 
claim.

"Whatever disagreement we have with the Tawheed group, I still think it is 
good for Iraq that there is such a powerful force to confront and instil 
fear in the American and coalition forces." When the number of bombs passed 
the 100 mark, Mohammed mused: "I wonder how the pilots feel when they are 
bombing Falluja or any city from the skies."

Uday, a thin man in an American baseball cap, replied: "They feel like they 
are masters of the skies. All-powerful and strong."

Not all those I left behind after two days in Falluja were young men. Rushdi 
Ayed, 57, said that staying behind with his wife and seven children was the 
honourable thing to do.

"My house can be destroyed but I will never leave Falluja and abandon it so 
that it may be destroyed by the Americans," he said. "If necessary I, too, 
will fight as will my wife and daughters to defend our city."

The family had stocked up on food and water and was ready for anything, he 
said.

"We refuse to be turned into refugees by the Americans," added a neighbour, 
55-year-old Haj Jassem Faraj. "It is better to remain and die in one's home 
with dignity than to turn into a refugee with nothing."

His wife recited verses from the Koran as the drones hovered above. "My four 
sons are at an age where they should be getting married, but I do not have 
the financial means," Faraj said, echoing a common complaint that those who 
had promised freedom had brought insecurity. His daughter Hawraa, 14, has 
been unable to attend classes or school since the start of term in 
September.

The fate of such families may ultimately depend on whether the estimated 
1,200 to 6,000 insurgents make a determined stand, as they did in April, or 
melt away in the face of overwhelming American firepower, allowing the Iraqi 
forces to take over.

One insurgent commander was in no doubt that his men would make an 
implacable enemy. "You will hear of unconventional tactics being used in 
Falluja," he said.

"We are very confident of our preparations."


Additional reporting: Ali Rifaat