Mr Rumsfeld suggested the current campaign would be different. US marines initially laid siege to Fallujah in April but later pulled back after a negotiated agreement. There is no accurate count of the number of civilian casualties in Iraq since the start of the conflict.Īcademics and peace activists have estimated the civilian toll at between 14,000 and 16,000. Rebels responded to the onslaught with mortar fire. The skies above burned red late into the night as artillery, warplanes and tanks pounded the Iraqi rebel bastion, west of Baghdad, with a barrage of firepower. The offensive was playing out on two fronts, one in the north-west across the notorious Jolan district, considered to be the heart of rebel activity, and the other in the north-east, in the direction of the train station. "The Iraqi forces are waiting to enter the city," the official added. Offensive underwayĪbout 3,000 US troops have entered Fallujah from the northern.įour battalions comprising soldiers and marines, on a front spanning some five kilometres have advanced about one kilometre inside the city, a US official said. He also said no one knew how many civilians remained in the city. They are using precision and they have rules of engagement that are appropriate to an urban environment." "The US forces are disciplined," he said. "There aren't going to be large numbers of civilians killed, certainly not by US forces," Mr Rumsfeld said. An unknown number of Fallujah's 300,000 residents have fled the city. The ground assault is expected to involve street fighting which would extract heavy casualties from both civilians and combatants. The onslaught was unleashed after Prime Minister Iyad Allawi announced he had given the go-ahead for the military to retake the city, the symbol of the potent insurgency that is bent on undermining his US-backed interim government. He made his remarks as US artillery, war planes and tanks pounded the Iraqi rebel bastion at the start of an operation by about 12,000 US and Iraqi troops to retake the city west of Baghdad. "I think it's a tough business, and it's going to take time," he said. Mr Rumsfeld said he did not foresee large numbers of civilian casualties during the assault.Īt a Pentagon news conference, Mr Rumsfeld shied away from a question about whether the operation in Fallujah would be a "final showdown" and said that insurgents holed up in the city were determined to resist. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the operation launched to take the Iraqi city of Fallujah will "take time" but that US-Iraqi forces will see it through to the end.
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