Falluja's fall

U.S. Marines in "liberated" Falluja. - ANJA NIEDRINGHAUS/AP

The bastion of Iraqi resistance lies in ruins, but only after sending across to the American occupiers the message that the heroic struggle for self-respect will continue vigorously.

THE United States military has declared that the Iraqi city of Falluja has been "liberated" after almost two weeks of fighting. Very few buildings have been left standing. Mosques have been specifically targeted. And the Americans call it liberation.

The Americans admit that the city witnessed one the most intense urban guerilla wars in the history of modern warfare. Besides, reports coming from the city in the last week of November attest to pockets of heroic resistance still existing in the city. Falluja, the city of mosques, has been reduced to rubble, mainly with massive air power and heavy artillery.

The main sufferers, as was predicted, are innocent civilians trapped by the American offensive. Reports appearing in the Western media say that civilians, including women and children, were not allowed to leave the city once the all-out offensive started in early November. Those attempting to flee by swimming across the Euphrates river were picked up by American snipers. The American military spokesman indirectly justified these actions by saying that plenty of warnings and time had been given to the residents to leave the city. Many of those who stayed behind did so to protect their property from looters. Others had nowhere to go. Thousands of the city's residents are already living in squalid refugee camps, as a result of the American offensive.

What really shocked the Iraqis and the international community were the graphic images of war crimes that emerged from Falluja. Pictures and stories of gross human rights violations by the U.S. occupation forces surfaced despite heavy censorship and the U.S. policy of allowing only embedded journalists to cover the attack. The most horrendous image that viewers all around the world saw was the cold blooded execution of a an injured and unarmed Iraqi fighter inside a mosque. The Arab media are full of stories of many similar executions by the occupation forces. The official civilian toll being put out by the American and Iraqi authorities is around 1,400 Iraqis killed. From available indications, most of those killed were innocent civilians. Many of the bodies lay unattended, to be devoured by dogs, as the fighting raged. The U.S. military toll in Iraq for November officially exceeded 100 deaths. More than a thousand have been grievously injured and evacuated to the U.S. military hospital in Germany.

Top United Nations officials have called for an investigation of the large-scale abuses that occurred during the battle for Falluja. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has expressed its concerns about the humanitarian situation in Falluja caused by the wanton destruction. Even the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Prime Minster, Iyad Allawi, issued a statement expressing deep concern about "allegations of an illegal killing by multinational forces" in Falluja. The only forces doing the fighting in Falluja were U.S. soldiers. Amnesty International wanted the U.N. to investigate another incident captured on tape in which an U.S. serviceman appeared to be firing at a civilian off-screen and then saying: "He's gone."

ACCORDING to most knowledgeable Iraq-watchers, the "liberation" of Falluja rings hollow. There were two openly articulated aims in launching the attack on the small city of 200,000. One was to kill or capture the Jordanian militant Abu Musab Al Zarqawi and his followers, who, according to U.S. propagandists, were holed up in Falluja. The second goal was to kill or eliminate 4,000 to 5,000 fighters.

It was clear from the outset that Zarqawi would not be presenting himself as a sitting duck for the Americans. Besides, the Arab and Iraqi media have been emphasising that the number of foreign militants fighting in Iraq is being greatly exaggerated by the U.S. authorities. Only 24 of the 1,000 fighters captured in Falluja have been identified as foreigners. The U.S. military has been able to identify only a handful of foreign fighters killed in the fighting.

It seems that when the Americans virtually announced a deadline for the invasion of Falluja, most of the hard-core fighters just melted away to nearby towns. According to U.S. intelligence agencies, only around 400 fighters stayed behind in Falluja to fight until death. The U.S. military is also reluctantly starting to concede that most of the Iraqi fighters in the Sunni triangle are bigger admirers of Saddam Hussein than Osama bin Laden or Zarqawi. The other fighters went to cities like Mosul and linked up with the resistance there. When the fighting was at its peak in Falluja, much of Mosul briefly fell into the hands of the resistance. Attacks on the occupation forces and their Iraqi supporters were ratcheted up, especially in Baghdad and other cities in the Sunni triangle.

The Iraqi Sunni scholar Muhammad Ayash al Kubaisi, who represents Iraq's Association of Muslim Scholars outside the country, wrote in the third week of November that when a nation's "identity, existence and dignity are put at risk, the sacrifice required is far more than the lives of the groups of fighters, and that is why Falluja has chosen to carry the flag of resistance in Iraq in the clear knowledge it may be wiped out". He said that the inhabitants of the city wanted to send a message to the decision-makers in the U.S. that coexistence with the occupiers was not possible. "The occupiers must understand it or the ghost of Faluja will chase them everywhere in Iraq."

Two senior clerics belonging to Kubaisi's association were assassinated in the last week of November. Nobody has claimed responsibility so far. But the buzz in the Arab world is that it was the same group that was responsible for the killing of the highly respected Margaret Hassan, the head of CARE in Iraq. Her body was found when the fighting had peaked in Falluja. The Zarqawi group had issued a statement that if Hassan came into their hands, she would be released promptly. The public outcry over Falluja has now made it difficult for any self-respecting Sunni politician to ally himself with the likes of Allawi. This makes the prospects of a fair and free elections in Iraq early next year even more dismal.

The U.S. Army, by massing more than 20,000 troops in Falluja, had once again overstretched itself, leaving the rest of its troops highly vulnerable to rebel attacks. From available indications, despite the "liberation" of Falluja, the Americans will have to continue to deploy a strong military contingent in the city. The Syrian newspaper Al Thawra has said that the destruction of Falluja is a message being sent to other Iraqi cities, threatening them with the same fate if they rebel against the occupation and hinder plans for the Americanisation of Iraq. The paper reflected the popular Arab street view when it asked the U.S. to "prove that al Zarqawi is not a ghost who serves to cover the intentions of the American invasion, as with the question of weapons of mass destruction which was exaggerated in order to launch the Iraq war".