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18 November 2004
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Thursday
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05 Shawwal 1425
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American Muslim group calls for investigation: War crimes in Fallujah
By Our Correspondent
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 17: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest American Muslim civil rights organization, has called for an immediate probe of alleged war crimes committed in the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
The CAIR, in a statement on the fighting in Fallujah, said the desperate situation in Fallujah requires that all impediments to the delivery of humanitarian relief supplies be lifted immediately It urged the American military authorities to do whatever was necessary to ensure that those supplies reached Iraqi civilians who were suffering and dying today in that city.
Alluding to the reports of the killing of a wounded Iraqi prisoner in a mosque in Fallujah by a US Marine, the CAIR said it was also essential that reports of attacks on civilians be investigated thoroughly by an independent international body and the results of that investigation be made known. There must be an accounting of civilian casualties in Fallujah and those forced to flee their homes must be allowed to return, it added.
The CAIR also called on President Bush, elected officials and all Americans of conscience to re-think US disastrous policies in Iraq and to recognize that those policies are making us less safe and less respected as a nation.
This is the first statement by any American Muslim organization on the situation in Fallujah which coincided with reports that U.S. troops have turned away an aid convoy trying to reach desperate civilians trapped in Fallujah.
In Geneva a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday there were civilians still in the city, in need of food, water and medicine. "The ICRC is very worried about the humanitarian situation in Fallujah, because we are receiving information from trapped families there and those who are injured have no access to medical care," Rana Sidani said.
The ICRC did not know how many people were left in the shattered city of 300,000, but the Iraqi Red Crescent put the figure at around 150 families, she added.
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