Al-Fallujah.
Resistance fighters inflict heavy casualties on US forces in large offensive on northern al-Fallujah.
In a dispatch posted at 12:25am Sunday morning Mecca time, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that US forces had issued another appeal to the al-Fallujah Resistance to surrender and lay down their weapons. A Resistance commander in the city said that the US appeal told the Resistance fighters, “you still have a chance to surrender. We know that you love live and love peace. So we advise you to abandon your weapons and surrender. This will be the last chance for peace between us because families are demanding that you lay down your weapons so that you can return home. All the Iraqis know the truth about you. You are driven by love of money and desire for high offices. The Iraqi elections are before you, so get yourselves ready if you want a position. If you want money we guarantee you a chance to work. Life is before you. Don’t die a slow death. We care about your lives because you have been deceived.”
Resistance commander Abu Nur said that the Americans repeated their call three times and the Resistance response was to fire rockets and mortars at them. The barrage was accompanied by calls of “God is greatest” issuing from the mosques.
Asked about US losses in the all-out Resistance attack on the north of al-Fallujah, Abu Nur replied that fighting began to die down at about 2:15pm. Resistance fighters began returning to their positions of concentration in the southern part of the city. The attacks destroyed 73 US tanks and armored vehicles and more than 35 Humvees.
Abu Nur said, although we’re talking about the Resistance pulling back to its positions in the south, they also launched attacks and ambushes as their main body was falling back. So the figures on US losses are just preliminary. They lost more than 290 killed just on the battlefield alone, Abu Nur said. That doesn’t count those killed by the Ababil, Tariq, and Grad rockets.
The Resistance succeeded in totally destroying the al-Fallujah train station, Abu Nur told Mafkarat al-Islam, by bombarding it with three Ababil rockets. Those razed it to the ground. One of the correspondents brought to al-Fallujah by the Americans reported that the train station had been flattened with all those inside. A cameraman said he was nearby and wanted to film it, but the US forces hit him and prevented him from taking the pictures. They then drove him away from the place, threatening to kill him. The cameraman had no estimate of the number of people killed in the attack. The train station, however, was regarded as an important site that the Resistance was always shelling because it was a center for the US troops and their military vehicles.
Abu Nur said that 63 Resistance fighters had been killed in Saturday’s great assault on the northern part of the city. Forty-three of the fighters were Iraqis killed in the front and rear lines of the fighting. The remaining 20 Resistance fighters were Arab fighters from Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Yemen. They all were in the front ranks. Abu Nur added that all the Resistance martyrs were buried in one place because of the shortage of space.
Abu Nur’s claims regarding US losses are confirmed by the fact that at 10:05pm Saturday night an American military column entered Baghdad, made up of 100 tanks and armored vehicles and 50 Humvees.
Resistance launches “ferocious” assault on US forces in northern al-Fallujah.
In a dispatch posted at 3:20pm Saturday Mecca time, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the Iraqi Resistance had launched its biggest offensive since the second siege of al-Fallujah began at the US forces concentrated in the northern part of the city. Mafkarat al-Islam reported that 1,400 Resistance fighters were taking part in the attack that has struck the Americans from all sides in a blow that clearly caught them totally by surprise.
Earlier on Saturday (see earlier story below) the Americans massed forces inside the northern part of the city, in which they have a presence, so that journalists could film public relations scenes to back up their claims to have assumed control over the city. The American troops brought in 40 al-Fallujah refugee families from al-Karmah, al-Azraqiyah, and as-Saqlawiyah, and with them members of the puppet police from Baghdad in order to show the press that they had now let the refugees back into the city after totally pacifying it.
The Americans rushed the 40 families and the journalists out of the city again when the Resistance began its assault at 10am local time.
The Resistance has mounted two lines of attack. One is the line on the ground in which 1,400 fighters are taking place. The other is from the air, in the form of barrages of Ababil, Tariq, Grad, large and small Katyusha, SAM 7, SAM 9, single, and quadruple barrel rockets. The rocket barrage is centered on US forces concentrated in the following open areas: around the train station, around the ash-Shukr Bridge, and across the highway. The rockets are being launched from the southern part of the city which is controlled by the Resistance – specifically, the neighborhoods of ash-Shuhada’, an-Nazal, and al-Jubayl.
At the moment he was writing his report, the correspondent said that thick black smoke was billowing up on all sides from the northern half of al-Fallujah. The correspondent described the barrage as “ferocious.” He noted that the Resistance forces had fired more than 30 of the extremely destructive Ababil rockets alone, just between 10:30am and 12:35pm.
Resistance sharpshooters took out 15 American snipers as of 12:30pm Saturday.
A US soldier spoke to a Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent outside al-Fallujah to the north, and described the Resistance barrages as “ferocious and relentless.”
Another US soldier to the east of the city near then strategic al-Butita store houses – the farthest point that the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent has gone from the city – said that the Resistance bombardment was “a relentless attack, such that the city has not seen before.”
A Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent saw a US soldier urinate in his trousers when a massive Ababil rocket exploded 300 meters away, shaking the earth.
Another American soldier said that US clergymen had come to the base to the east of the city to offer prayers and absolution, because the level of fear and terror is incredibly high. The soldier then said, “I’d like to know who are those people who throw themselves on tanks and armored vehicles? Are they human, or made of steel, or animals?”
An American officer told a Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent, “the return of the families to al-Fallujah has become impossible due to the intensity of this attack.” This statement constituted American acknowledgement that they do not control the city, contrary to claims by the American occupation command in Iraq.
US mounts huge publicity show in northern al-Fallujah.
The US occupation forces brought in a large number of journalists on a huge convoy early on Saturday morning, apparently in order to present a propaganda show on their “victory” in al-Fallujah. A spokesman for the Iraqi Resistance told the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent that Resistance intelligence observed a massive American column of more than 1,000 military vehicles driving into the northern part of the city. They came along the road from Baghdad, crossing the as-Sukkar “ash-Shukr” bridge, the correspondent said in a report posted at 12:15pm Saturday, Mecca time.
Resistance commander Abu Nur said that the huge column was made up of Abrams tanks, Bradley armored vehicles, and Humvees. It began coming into the northern part of the city at 4am Saturday, local time, and the last vehicles pulled in at about 7:30am. The US vehicles spread out into the neighborhoods of the north of the city, concentrating in the neighborhoods of ash-Shurtah, Nuwwab ad-Dubbat, al-‘Askari, al-Wahdah, al-Muhandisin, al-Andalus, al-Jaghifi, the first and second al-Mu‘allimin neighborhoods, festival square [Sahat al-Ihtifalat], the united car garage, Ta‘s Na‘‘umi, and the 7th of April neighborhoods.
Abu Nur said that US snipers deployed atop about 500 houses in the northern part of the city.
Despite the security, Abu Nur reported that the US column was attacked four times during its progress. It was bombarded by Resistance mortar rounds of various calibers from the beginning of its arrival until it was finished.
At 5:15am Resistance forces attacked the column in front of the Shaykh Khan Darri building in Khan Darri village in the Abu Ghurayb area, destroying nine tanks and two Humvees.
An Iraqi Resistance detachment attacked the column in the adh-Dhahab al-Abyad village area also in Abu Ghurayb at 6:30, destroying a huge transport truck that for carrying tanks and disabling one of the tanks that was loaded aboard it.
At 7am Resistance fighters in al-Karmah attacked the column, destroying four of the massive tank transport trucks (each carrying two tanks). These three Resistance attacks killed 12 US troops.
The Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent in the area outside of al-Fallujah met some journalists who had refused to enter the city with the column. They said that they refused out of fear of the fighting that was erupting. They said they were watching Resistance missiles rocketing towards the US forces for two hours. Some of them said that they refused to enter al-Fallujah because they believed that the occupation forces were intent on using them to film a theatrical show on the “stable situation” in al-Fallujah.
Mafkarat al-Islam’s correspondent commented that he did not know whether these latest events were simply an American attempt to show the world that the situation is now “stable” in al-Fallujah, by filming US troops thickly deployed within the northern part of the city, or whether they are preparing for some large-scale attack on the Resistance, or indeed whether the Resistance will take the initiative and attack these fresh occupation troops.
Resistance group claims credit for destroying two Humvees in ar-Ramadi.
An Iraqi Resistance group called the Islamic Movement of Mujahideen of Iraq used a video tape to claim responsibility for two attacks on two US Humvees in ar-Ramadi.
