The Attack on Fallujah

Associated Press writer Jim Krane reported that "heavy street clashes were raging in ... northern sectors of Fallujah", citing residents .

Whereas the "once constant thunder of artillery barrages" pounding the city [until this morning] was said to be halted so U.S. troops could move in, a resident of Fallujah, Fadril al-Badrani told Jim Krane shortly after nightfall on Monday, about the town's recent experience.
"Every minute, hundreds of bombs and shells are exploding. [...] The north of the city is in flames. I can also see fire and smoke.. Fallujah has become a hell." (Yahoo News / Associated Press, Nov. 9, 2004)

According to this witness, "hundreds of houses" have already been destroyed, their inhabitants in all likelihood have been killed.

This is being done not in a context of war, but as a peacetime policing action which fails to differentiate between guerillas opposing the U.S. led occupation and peaceful inhabitants of a city of 300,000. These are atrocities well worth being compared to the murderous acts committed by certain Serbian, Muslim, and Croatian combattants in Bosnia a few years ago. As the Bush administration is trying to prop up a puppet regime installed by its illegal occupation forces, apparently the end justifies the means. The troops that have been shelling civilians of an occupied town, long after the war ended, are the same US troops which committed a grave crime against humanity when conducting an illegal war, in breach of international law and in full contempt of the tenets that have been adopted by the United Nations.

"The question of casualties is a major factor in the offensive. [...] Rumsfeld insisted Monday, 'There aren't going to be large numbers of civilians killed .... Innocent civilians in that city have all the guidance they need as to how they can avoid getting into trouble [...]' (AP, Nov.9,2004)

The much less violent U.S. attack against Fallujah, carried out last October, in response to the killing of two U.S. civilians (employed by the U.S. army?!) reportedly led to "hundreds of people killed".
Jim Krane notes that heavy casualties among Fallujah's civilian population at the time caused severe protests
in Iraq and by international human rights groups and "and forced the Marines to pull back."

In order to make sure that this time doctors will not feed the international press an unbiased picture of what is being done to the civilian population of the beleaguered city, a hospital at the outskirts of town has been occupied "preventively" by U.S. troops. A spokesman of the U.S. led forces claimed that it had been a center of "propaganda" during the October assault on the city.

Today, Rumsfeld blatantly insists there will be few, if any civilian casualties and if civilians die, they will be killed by their neighbors and relatives resisting the American occupation - not by hundreds upon hundreds of U.S. bombs and continued artillery fire that set aflame entire sections of the town.

"On Monday, a doctor at a clinic in Fallujah ... reported 12 people killed [that he had come to know of in this hospital]. Seventeen others [from the area served by this hospital], including a 5-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy, were wounded, he said." (Jim KRANE, AP, Nov. 9, 2004)
It would be naive to assume that this gives us a realistic idea of the extent of suffering, or of the true number of casualties in Fallujah. It simply is a small piece out of a much larger picture...

Another source reported on Nov. 9, 2004:

"Meanwhile, civilians are leaving Fallujah.
These men were headed for Baghdad yesterday,
their ute [truck] loaded with household
appliances. The US military [are] warning any man
under 45 entering or leaving Fallujah will now be
detained; they are also advising
women and children to leave."

Were they allowed to leave Fallujah? Or were they detained, as promised by the
US authorities?

The above photo is said to show people detained recently.
These men are viewed by the U.S. led occupation forces
as members of the résistance or - a synonym, for them - "terrorists".

Every male inhabitant between 15 and 45, living in Fallujah, and apprehended
either in the city or while trying to leave the city, is automatically considered
to be a (potential) "terrorist."

Are Nazi policies that once targeted towns like Villeneuve-d'Ascq,
Oradour, or Lidice, being revived?