FALLUJAH, April 13: A patchy truce around the besieged city of Fallujah started to unravel on Tuesday with a Marine and nine Iraqis killed in sporadic fighting and an American helicopter forced down under fire.
At the same time, a senior official of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) said the alleged mastermind of Al Qaeda operations in Iraq, Abu Mussab al Zarqawi, was believed to be in the area. "Zarqawi is believed to be in Fallujah or nearby," said Dan Senor.
He did not provide details or say how close US forces might be to capturing the man accused of being behind some of the deadliest suicide attacks in Iraq over the past year. "I am not going to talk about specific plans for the hunt for Zarqawi, but rest assured it is robust. ... We believe that Fallujah right now is a hotbed for foreign fighters in Iraq, which would include Zarqawi."
The MH-53 helicopter, which can carry up to 55 people, came down southeast of Fallujah two days after an Apache attack helicopter was shot down in the same region, killing the two-man crew. "This morning a coalition helicopter made an emergency landing due to ground fire," Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt of the US Army told a Baghdad news conference.
Officials said Marines who rushed to secure the crash site came under attack and sustained casualties. Brig Kimmitt gave the number of wounded as three and said the aircraft was destroyed to keep it out of the hands of fighters.
A Marine official said the aircraft did not belong to the US Marine Corps, but to another US government agency. The official said Marines sent to the crash site, some 20kms southeast of Fallujah, came under attack.
As the Marines took their casualties to a trauma centre, they were ambushed by mortars and rocket-propelled grenade fire, and suffered more casualties, the official said. A Marine spokesman later said one Marine had died and seven wounded on Tuesday in fighting after the helicopter came down.
Hospital sources in Fallujah said nine Iraqis were killed and 38 wounded in sporadic fire breaching a truce between US forces and guerillas. "We have nine killed and 38 wounded today," said Mohamad Tabsh, a doctor at the main medical centre of Fallujah, the Popular Clinic. "The wounded include three women and four children," he said.
After three days of relative calm, fighting broke out late in the afternoon and American tanks opened fire in the city, a witness said. "A shell fell on a building housing the teachers' institute in Al Andalus neighbourhood," Mohammed Aidan said, adding that clashes had also broken out in the Al Jumhuriya quarter.
Those confrontations continued for more than 30 minutes and black smoke billowed into the sky over the area. Lt Col Brennan Byrne of the US Marines later said two amphibious assault vehicles had come under fire in the
city.
"Two trackers got caught up with the enemy. They came under attack, so we went right to trying to protect them," Col Byrne said, adding that warplanes were called in to give them cover. The truce had entered its fourth day on Tuesday, as Marines and Iraqi fighters waited to see if negotiators could hammer out a deal to halt the heaviest military campaign in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's government fell a year ago.
At least two delegations sent by the US-installed Governing Council, with the endorsement of the Coalition Provisional Authority, held talks on Monday in Fallujah.
The fighting that began on April 5 has left more than 600 Iraqis dead and some 1,250 wounded, according to hospital sources quoted by one of the mediators. "Among those killed were 160 women, 141 children and many elderly," said Fouda Rawi, senior member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which was leading the bid for a permanent ceasefire.
Officials of the occupation authority have said the number of civilian casualties was impossible to verify and insist their soldiers take every precaution to avoid hitting non-combatants. -AFP
