US Marines fight their way into the center of Fallujah. (Reuters)

BAGHDAD, 10 November 2004 — US and Iraqi troops yesterday fought their way into the center of the rebel city of Fallujah. US Army and Marine units fought with bands of guerrillas in the streets and searched house to house on the second day of a major offensive to retake the insurgent stronghold.

About a dozen US troops have been killed so far in the offensive, US Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz said, without giving a precise toll. “You can count our casualties in certainly a dozen,” Metz, the multinational force corps commander, told a press briefing. “I would not want to characterize it beyond that. It is light,” he said.

An American soldier wounded in Fallujah said he had seen two of his colleagues killed. “A buddy of mine and another soldier were killed and I have seen about 50 other wounded (US) soldiers since the fighting began,” he said while awaiting medical evacuation.

Heavy street clashes were raging in Fallujah’s northern neighborhoods. By midday, US armored units, advancing from the north, had made their way to the highway running east-west through the city’s center and crossed over into the southern part of the town.

The military reported lighter-than-expected resistance in Jolan, a warren of alleyways in northwestern Fallujah where guerillas were believed to be at their strongest.

That could be a sign that insurgents left the city before the operation started or that the troops have not yet reached the location to which the resistance has fallen back, Pentagon officials said in Washington.

US officers said few civilians were trying to flee the city. They said the bulk of the population of 200,000 to 300,000 left before the fighting and the rest were hunkered down because of a 24-hour curfew. US troops were preventing most people from leaving, except in emergency cases. One funeral procession was allowed out of the city.

Before the Monday night attack, the US military reported 42 insurgents killed, while Fallujah doctors reported 12 people dead. But since then, there has not been word of the Iraqi death toll.

Among the Iraqis killed was a 9-year-old boy, severely injured by shrapnel in the abdomen when his home was bombarded by US jets on Monday night. His parents were unable to get him to hospital and he died hours later of blood loss, they said.

US forces cut off electricity to the city. Residents said they were without running water and were worried about food shortages because most shops in the city have been closed for the past two days.

“The north of the city is in flames. I can also see fire and smoke... Fallujah has become like hell,” Fadril Al-Badrani, a resident in the center of Fallujah, said amid a heavy air and artillery barrage. He said hundreds of houses had been destroyed.

A leading Sunni Muslim political party pulled out of the US-backed interim government in protest against the onslaught on Fallujah. “The Iraqi Islamic Party has decided to withdraw from the government in protest against the attack on Fallujah that is harming the people,” said Mohsen Abdul Hamid, senior party official and member of Iraq’s provisional National Assembly.

As battles raged in Fallujah, insurgents hit back elsewhere with attacks on police stations in Baqubah and Baghdad, fighting in Ramadi and a mortar attack in the northern city of Mosul.

But in Baqubah, the official in charge of the main morgue denied earlier reports that 45 people were killed in the attacks claimed by Al-Qaeda ally Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi. He said he had not dealt with any dead from the attacks.

Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, making fresh use of emergency powers he activated on Sunday, imposed a night curfew on Baghdad for an indefinite period. The curfew will hold from 10.30 p.m. to 4 a.m.

— Additional input from agencies