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Clashes erupt in Baghdad, US offers Fallujah truce. 11/04/2004. ABC News Online
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A US Marine mantains a security position in Fallujah. (AFP) |
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Clashes erupt in Baghdad, US offers Fallujah truce
Street fighting has erupted in Baghdad and sporadic gunfire has echoed across Fallujah despite a new United States truce offer and an effort by Iraqi officials to secure a peace deal with insurgents in the western city.
The truce offer in Fallujah came after Iraqi politicians, decrying US "collective punishment" meted out to local people, demanded a halt to the worst fighting since Saddam Hussein fell.
The coalition's director of military operations, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told a news conference: "Coalition forces are prepared to implement a ceasefire with enemy elements in Fallujah commencing at noon (local time) today."
"At this point it's an aspiration. We are hoping to use this press conference...to get this message to the enemy."
The aim was to allow peace talks between Iraqi officials and insurgents, with no US participation, Brigadier General Kimmitt said.
Fallujah talks
An Iraqi Governing Council delegation went to Fallujah on Saturday.
Council member Mahmoud Othman told Reuters "They are meeting with religious leaders there, and with leaders of the anti-coalition forces."
They planned to stay "until a deal can be cut".
Mr Othman said the team would ask Fallujah leaders to hand over those who attacked four US private security guards 10 days ago and then burned and dragged their bodies through the streets.
US Marines launched a retaliatory crackdown in Fallujah on Monday, triggering battles in which one hospital official has said 450 people were killed and 1,000 wounded.
As the talks occurred, a masked man in a videotape aired by Al-Arabiya Arabic television demanded the withdrawal of US-led forces from Iraq.
"We have Japanese, Bulgarian, Israeli, American, Spanish and Korean hostages. Their numbers are 30," he said.
"If America doesn't lift its blockade of Fallujah their heads will be cut off," he said.
The footage showed none of the alleged hostages.
But several foreigners are known to have gone missing in a spate of kidnapping over the past few days, putting pressure on US allies, including Japan, Britain, Spain and Italy.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has rejected pulling out his troops, despite protests in Tokyo urging him to do so.
The Pentagon said two US soldiers and an unknown number of civilian contractors were missing after an attack on a military fuel convoy in Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad on Friday.
Australian television footage also showed a captive American, possibly one of those truck drivers, being driven off by gunmen.
Two German embassy security guards went missing while travelling on the same main highway from Jordan to Baghdad a few days ago, the German Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
Officials in Berlin said they feared the pair had been killed.
A Reuters reporter saw two foreigners, one of them wounded, in a mosque at Abu Ghraib.
Gunmen said they were Italian.
Berlusconi visit
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a close US ally who has rejected demands at home for Italian troops to be withdrawn, paid an Easter visit to the contingent in Iraq.
He told troops in the southern town of Nassiriya he was proud of them.
"I bring you a big hug from all of Italy."
Italian forces battled Shiite fighters earlier this week for control of Euphrates river bridges in Nassiriya after radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr launched a revolt in the south.
Defiant cleric
Meanwhile, Moqtada al-Sadr said in a statement issued by his office in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Saturday: "The occupation's promises are evil. They must not be heeded."
"Do not be scared by the sound of warplanes. Remain steadfast," he told his followers.
The US army said on Saturday it killed 12 insurgents in northern Iraq, destroying their truck with a missile after the guerrillas opened fire with a rocket-propelled grenade.
It also said its forces killed three "insurgents" after clashes broke out at a demonstration at Mosul city hall on Friday.
An overnight curfew was then imposed in the northern city.
In other violence, a US tank was set on fire on a highway west of Baghdad on Saturday and locals said it had been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by a 10-year-old boy.
Festival
In Kerbala, witnesses said streets were quiet just hours away from the start of Arbain ceremonies, as al-Sadr fighters traded fire with Polish troops on the outskirts.
A leader of al-Sadr's Mehdi army, Sheikh Hamza al-Tai, told Al Jazeera television it had suspended "liberation operations" in the city, south of Baghdad, until after Arbain.
Few pilgrims could be seen on the streets of Kerbala, though US officials say 1.2 million pilgrims have gathered for Arbain, which comes 40 days after suicide bombers killed 171 people in Baghdad and Kerbala during another religious occasion.
--Reuters/AFP
In other developments:
- The US-led coalition showed no sign of easing its tough no-deal line with the captors of three Japanese hostages as the deadline neared for their threatened execution. (Full Story)
- Television footage on Saturday showed an American, possibly a civilian truck driver, being held hostage by Iraqi guerrillas. (Full Story)
- A previously unknown armed group in Iraq said on Saturday it was holding 30 foreigners who would be brutally killed unless US-led coalition troops pulled out of Iraq, particularly the town of Fallujah, Al-Arabiya television reported. (Full Story)
- The director of the Iraqi Red Crescent in the Kurdish city of Arbil and his wife, who also worked for the organisation, have been found dead in the main northern city of Mosul. (Full Story)
- Escalating fighting in Iraq and mounting casualties among US troops have deflated enthusiasm for the war among Americans, who are growing increasingly sceptical about the undertaking, according to a flurry of new opinion polls. (Full Story)
- A Victorian Islamic council spokesman says the escalation of violence in Iraq is very worrying. (Full Story)
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