BAGHDAD, 29 April 2004 — US forces bombed targets suspected of sheltering Iraqi fighters in Fallujah yesterday as President George W. Bush vowed to “take whatever action is necessary to secure” the city.
“Our military commanders will take whatever action is necessary to secure Fallujah on behalf of the Iraqi people,” Bush said at the White House after meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson.
US aircraft and helicopters for a second day blasted suspected resistance positions with missiles and machine gun fire as a heavy gunbattle reportedly broke out near the rail station in Fallujah, 50 kilometers west of Baghdad.
Fallujah has been the scene of the fiercest fighting since US-led forces invaded Iraq in March last year at the start of a war which was supported by allies such as Britain and Italy but opposed by France, Germany and others.
Scores of US soldiers have been killed since they laid siege to the city on April 5 after four US civilian contractors were killed in an ambush. The Iraqi Health Ministry says 280 Iraqis have died, including 24 women and 30 children, with 820 wounded, but the toll may be far higher.
Quelling the upsurge in violence has cost US forces dearly, with the number of troops killed in action in April nearing, if not already surpassing the 109 killed during the “major combat” phase of the war when US-led forces invaded Iraq, according to Pentagon figures.
Fighter jets and heavily armed AC-130 aircraft could be heard over Fallujah after several Marine units, backed by tanks and mortar fire, came under fire from small arms and rocket propelled grenades.
While plumes of black smoke rose from several buildings hit in helicopter raids, US military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmit told BBC radio: “We are not deliberately targeting civilians nor carrying out retribution or punitive action.”
The attacks were a response to “repeated violations of the cease-fire on the part of the adversary,” he said.
Both US and British leaders defended the scale of force being used against resistance fighters as criticism mounted about the cost to civilians trapped inside the city.
In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair called the airstrikes overnight “perfectly right and proper”.
“I deeply regret any civilian deaths in Fallujah but it is necessary that order is restored and the Americans are trying to do that,” Blair told Parliament during his weekly question and answer period.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell slammed fighters for using mosques to launch attacks on US troops.
“We are being very careful on what we are doing in Fallujah and Najaf and Karbala and elsewhere in the country,” Powell told reporters on the sidelines of an international anti-Semitism conference in Berlin.
“We are being as careful as we can not to injure civilians and not to damage holy places,” he said.
US troops have also clashed with militias loyal to a radical Shiite cleric based in Najaf, south of the capital.
An aide to the cleric Moqtada Sadr repeated a warning yesterday of a “violent response” if US troops entered Najaf.
— Additional input from agencies
