Falluja suicide bombers escape back to Baghdad [Zarqawi commander Hadid breached Falluja cordon]
Sunday Times ^ | 14 Nov 04 | Hala Jaber
 

HUNDREDS of fighters who escaped the American onslaught on Falluja were regrouping, rearming and attacking elsewhere yesterday in an attempt to show that Iraq’s insurgency would continue despite the loss of up to 1,600 men in their former stronghold.
Seven Saudi suicide bombers were among those who had reached Baghdad, an insurgents’ commander said. They were waiting to be given a list of targets.

Other fighters clashed with American troops on the road from Falluja to Baghdad, and US warplanes carried out airstrikes against insurgents just outside the capital.

A video said to have been made by 11 insurgent groups warned government employees last night to stop work or risk being killed for “doing a service to the Americans”. A statement read by a masked gunman threatened to take the battle of Falluja to all corners of Iraq.

However, a wounded insurgent I interviewed by telephone in Falluja confirmed that the rebels who remained behind as it was encircled by US and Iraqi government forces had been slaughtered.

The injured fighter, Abu Jarrah, said almost all the 18 men of the unit he led had been wiped out after becoming isolated when other groups melted away on the second night of the offensive. The men had retreated into two houses when one of the buildings was hit by a tank shell, Jarrah said.

A teacher who had joined the insurgents keeled over against him and whispered, “There is no god but God”, before dying. Others were shot by American snipers when they tried to attack the tank.

Qasim Dawud, the national security minister, declared the Falluja mission “accomplished”, with more than 1,000 insurgents killed and 200 captured. An unofficial American source put the toll as high as 1,600, with one battalion alone claiming to have killed 400.

US commanders said last night they had “occupied” the entire city. They added, however, that it could still take several days to clear the remaining pockets of resistance.

“We are just pushing them against the anvil,” said Colonel Michael Formica, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 2nd Brigade. “It’s a broad attack against the entire southern front.” Coalition and Iraqi government officials have welcomed the taking of Falluja as an important step towards restoring security in Iraq in time for elections due in late January.

Sources in the insurgency acknowledged there had been heavy losses in Falluja but claimed at least half the fighters in the city had left by the time the Americans moved in.

The sources predicted that violence would now become more widespread as those who had fled joined forces with other insurgent elements in central and northern Iraq.

A series of attacks in “Sunni triangle” towns around Falluja in recent days spread yesterday to Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city, where groups of rebels were reported to be patrolling the streets virtually unchallenged. The Americans were forced to divert an infantry battalion from the fighting in Falluja to deal with the uprising.

The Saudi suicide bombers who arrived in Baghdad were said to have been recruited by the Tawheed wal Jihad group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, America’s most wanted man in Iraq.

The same group beheaded the British engineer Ken Bigley, whose memorial service was attended by Tony Blair yesterday in Liverpool. According to one commander, the Saudis have been trained to strike in vehicles packed with explosives. They have been handed over to another group in Baghdad that will now give orders.

Separate sources said Tawheed wal Jihad’s feared Falluja commander, Omar Hadid, also escaped from the city on Monday or Tuesday.

Hadid was said to have breached the US cordon with al-Zarqawi’s right-hand man, known as Abu Mujaheed, and up to 30 other men. They were thought to be planning attacks in the capital. Al-Zarqawi claimed in a recording posted on the internet last Friday that blood spilt in Falluja would “point the way to God’s victory”.

Humanitarian groups warned that many of the thousands of trapped civilians were short of water and food. A Red Crescent convoy reached Falluja yesterday, and Iraq’s health minister, Alaadin al-Alwan, said the transfer of wounded to Baghdad hospitals had begun.