|
lord of the mark
|
 |
FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:19
|
|
The Times of London (hat tip, Rantburg)
'Survivors emerge on to shattered streets of Fallujah
From James Hider in Fallujah
OVER the rubble-strewn streets of Fallujah the voice from the loudspeaker on the minaret is no longer a call to jihad, destruction or death.
As the fighting tapers off to isolated pockets in the southern fringes of the city, the broadcast is an offer of help by the Iraqi Army to the traumatised people of this former rebel bastion.
Few are heeding the call. Only a tiny number of people have ventured out of their houses since the massive air, artillery and ground assault was launched by the American military to wrest the city from insurgents a week ago. Without electricity, television or radio, some may not even know that the assault is almost over.
Yesterday, however, a handful of dazed people did stumble out of their homes, where they have been running low on food and water, to see what the new order would bring. After seven months in guerrilla hands, the United States took back the city on the Euphrates in just seven days — but at a cost. Scores of houses have been bombed flat, the roads are churned up by tank tracks and most buildings show some evidence of the raging battle — bullet holes, smashed windows, walls ploughed down by armoured vehicles. Several mosques used by insurgents as bases or weapons stashes have been reduced to rubble.
Other areas have emerged relatively unscathed, although these, too, appear to be devoid of inhabitants. As stories of terrorist atrocities emerge, it is becoming clear that the people of Fallujah have long become accustomed to keeping their heads down.
Never a particularly presentable city, it is sometimes hard to tell what has been damaged by war and what has simply fallen down. Yet it was always a bustling place, with a busy market, and a traffic hub, its main street forever choked with cars and lorries heading in from Jordan.
Now the only traffic is the huge olive and khaki monsters of the US Marines and US Army, with the occasional white pick-up used by the Iraqi Army. The Iraqi soldiers are trying to lure out the residents to allow their medical staff to treat the sick and wounded.
Most of the civilians who stayed behind were the city’s heads of families, trying to prevent their homes from being looted. Under the strict rules of the military, all men of fighting age are being detained and vetted. Some Iraqi army units have picked up as many as 500 men, some of whom recount how guerrilla snipers shot any people who tried to leave their home once the fight was on.
Even those who had been hurt in the attack appeared to be happy to see the American troops. One half-naked elderly man in underwear stained with blood from wounds inflicted by a US shell cursed the insurgents as he greeted advancing Marines. “I wish the Americans had come here the very first day and not waited eight months,” he said.
Another old man, who had been imprisoned by the rebels and was then petrified by the US assault, praised the American troops for driving out the gunmen. “We were happy you did what you did because Fallujah had been suffocated by the Mujahidin,” he said, recalling arbitrary killings of anyone who failed to adhere to the strict doctrine of the Wahhabi hardliners. “Anyone considered suspicious would be slaughtered. We would see unknown corpses around the city all the time.”
As American bulldozers began to clear the streets yesterday and the first of the army’s civil affairs teams headed in to assess reconstruction needs, one officer judged that for the people of Fallujah, the old Vietnam War adage – “To save the village we had to destroy it” – may hold true.'
|
16-11-2004 04:49
|
|