US Marines launch offensive on Falluja

Thousands of US Marines and Iraqi troops backed by tanks stormed into Falluja as night fell yesterday, the start of a fierce ground assault to retake the rebel stronghold.

Several tanks thrust into the city and guerillas were putting up some resistance, Marine radio traffic showed.

Intense US air strikes, artillery and mortar fire rained down. This reporter heard the crackle of firefights as troops advanced at least four blocks into the militant stronghold, with helicopters flying overhead.

Flares lit the night sky as the Marines earlier unleashed a barrage of tank and machinegun fire on a nearby railway station, clearing the way for the ground attack on the Sunni Muslim city.

"We are determined to clean Falluja from the terrorists," Prime Minister Iyad Allawi told a news conference in Baghdad, saying the US-led operation had his authority.

Mr Allawi visited Iraqi troops at the main US base near Falluja, 50 kilometres west of Baghdad, a few hours before the main offensive began and told them they had to free the people of the city who had been "taken hostage" by insurgents.

"Your job is to arrest the killers but if you kill them then let it be," he said, according to a pool report.

"May they go to hell," shouted the soldiers. "To hell they will go," Mr Allawi replied.

General George Casey, chief of the US-led multinational forces, said 10,000 to 15,000 US and Iraqi troops were involved in the offensive, which he expected to last a few days.

The all-out assault began soon after the Iftar meal breaking the daily fast during the Holy month of Ramadan.

Intense fighting shook Falluja in the morning. F-16 fighters screamed across cloudy skies, dropping bombs that sent up clouds of black smoke.

When air attacks eased, artillery shells rained down. Cobra helicopters fired rockets and gunfire crackled as US forces peered through binoculars at guerilla targets.

Between thunderous explosions, a cleric with a booming voice at a distant mosque rallied militants for what could be Iraq's biggest battle since last year's US-led invasion.

"God is greatest, oh martyrs," he said, telling fighters that waging holy war was an honour. "Rise up mujahideen."

A hospital doctor in Falluja, Ahmed Ghanim, said 15 people had been killed and 20 wounded in the fighting.

Mr Allawi said he was using emergency powers to impose a curfew on Falluja and its sister city of Ramadi further west and to close Baghdad international airport for 48 hours.

Mr Allawi also tightened controls on the borders with Jordan and Syria, saying only essential goods would be allowed in.

He said the curfew in Falluja and Ramadi would start at 6 p.m. (1500 GMT). He did not say how long it would last.

Mr Allawi declared 60 days of emergency rule on Sunday to crush an insurgency ahead of planned elections in January.

With the US offensive shaping up, al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi called on Muslims to take up arms against America. "Oh people, the war has begun and the call for jihad (holy war) has been made," he said in an Internet statement.

Zarqawi's appeal did not mention Falluja by name. The US military says fighters loyal to him are holed up in the city along with Iraqi insurgents loyal to Saddam Hussein.

Leaders of Iraq's Shi'ite majority and Sunni clerics both condemned the attack in the middle of Ramadan.

The Sunni Muslim Clerics Association urged Iraqi security forces not to fight alongside US troops in Falluja and "to beware of making the grave mistake of invading Iraqi cities under the banner of forces who respect no religion or human rights".

A spokesman for anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr told Al Jazeera television:

"We strongly condemn the planned attack by occupation forces against Falluja and therefore ask members of the Iraqi National Guard, army and police not to help occupying forces target the sons of Iraq in Falluja. They should not be tools in the hands of the occupation because it targets everybody."

Inside Falluja, masked guerillas roamed empty streets with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Men wept as they buried seven white-shrouded bodies, some of them fighters, in a narrow trench in Falluja's makeshift graveyard in a sports stadium, Reuters TV footage showed.

Two suicide bombers detonated their vehicles to try to stop US forces advancing in Ramadi, police said. There was no word on casualties or US confirmation of the attacks.

Guerillas also hit back in Baghdad, where a suicide bomber blew up his red Opel car near a US convoy on the main airport road, killing at least three people, witnesses said.

Gunmen killed a US soldier in eastern Baghdad in a separate attack, the US military said.

Two car bombs exploded outside churches in Baghdad, killing at least three people at one and wounding 40.