FALLUJAH, September 13 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A sweeping US incursion into the western Iraqi city of Fallujah killed early Monday, September13 , 18 Iraqis and injured up to 26 others one day after some 110 people were killed by US gunfire and roadside attacks in one of the bloodiest days witnessed by the occupied country.
Tanks, artillery and warplanes were used in Monday’s deadly offensive that also blew up civilian cars and houses, Al-Jazeera satellite channel reported.
Many residents were forced to flee their homes as the US military closed the city’s gateways to the panic of the already horrified civilians.
The US troops used loudspeakers to urge the city’s residents to cooperate with them to crush the “insurgents” and “foreign terrorist”, the Doha-based all-news channel added.
Four dead bodies, ravaged by the missile strike, were taken straight to the cemetery for burial after a US warplane struck a civilian car driving along a new motorway west of Fallujah, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent said.
At least 26 people were wounded, including women and children, when US artillery and tanks pounded the northern Fallujah districts of Al-Geghigh and Al-Shurga from around4 : 00am (midnight GMT).
The shelling lasted for nearly two hours before a US plane struck houses in Al-Shurga, an AFP correspondent said.
One house was completely flattened by the missile and two others were partially destroyed, the reporter saw, as ambulances ferried the wounded to hospital.
Heavy sniper fire and sporadic shelling continued to reverberate in the northern outskirts of the city as US warplanes circled overhead at around8 : 20a.m. and deafening explosions could be heard coming from the same area.
The US air force had relentlessly pounded Fallujah last week after seven marines and three Iraqi national guardsmen were killed in a car bombing last Monday.
Residents of Fallujah have often countered US claims that resistance fighters were being attacked, saying that those coming under fire were ordinary Iraqi civilians.
In April, at least 700 Iraqis, mostly women and children, were killed and 1500 others injured when the US occupation forces imposed a tight siege on the city and intensified air strikes on its densely-populated areas.
110 Iraqis Killed
The shelling came only hours after at least 110 people were killed across Iraq Sunday, September12 , by US gunfire and roadside bombs.
The Iraqi Health Ministry said the worst casualties were in Baghdad, where 37 were killed, and in Tal Afar near the Syrian border where 51 people died following deadly raids by US occupation troops, Reuters news agency reported.
Witnesses and officials said 13 people were killed and 61 wounded in fierce battles in central Baghdad.
A US helicopter opened fire on a crowd milling around a burning US armored vehicle, killing a television journalist reporting from the scene.
The US justified launching the missile by saying it did not want the burnt tank to be “looted”.
In Ramadi, west of Baghdad, US tanks and helicopters fired on a residential district, killing 10 Iraqis, including women and children, a doctor said.
In Samarra, north of Baghdad, five Iraqis were killed and a fourth injured when roadside bombs hit their vehicles.
Five Iraqi policemen were also killed in the northern city of Mosul when a police station came under a mortar attack.
The Iraqi capital also suffered at least seven car bombs, and resistance fighters fired a dozen mortar bombs around the so-called Green Zone compound housing Iraq's interim government and the US embassy.
Six Iraqis were killed in the attacks, which were one of the deadliest so far in Iraq.
South of Baghdad, three Polish soldiers were killed and three wounded when they were attacked near Hilla.