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US blurs lines between resistance and terror Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,11385277%255E663,00.htmlhttp://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,11385277%255E663,00.html
Terror mastermind slips net
15nov04
TERROR mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has escaped from Fallujah as military officials declared US troops had now occupied the rebel city.
A US officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Fallujah was "occupied but not subdued". Iraqi officials said the action to free Fallujah of militants was "accomplished", but they acknowledged al-Zarqawi had escaped.
US officers said the resistance had not been entirely subdued and there could be several more days of fighting.
Three marines were killed yesterday by an explosion as they entered a booby-trapped building in the central city.
Another 13 were wounded, 10 seriously, in a firefight just south of the main road through the centre of the Sunni Muslim bastion.
The offensive has killed at least 25 US troops and an estimated 1000 insurgents. Rebel attacks elsewhere, especially in the northern city of Mosul, forced the Americans to shift troops from Fallujah, 65km west of Baghdad.
Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said Iraqi security forces were massing and would move on Mosul, a city of more than a million people 370km north of Baghdad, "in the next day or so".
The Iraqi Red Crescent is struggling to give food and medical aid to residents in Fallujah after a convoy of emergency supplies entered the city but only got as far as the US-occupied hospital.
"The people inside Fallujah are dying and starving -- they need us," a spokeswoman said.
Insurgents also attacked a military base outside Baghdad, killing one coalition soldier and wounding three others.
At least four people were killed and 29 wounded in a US air strike on rebels and clashes in the Abu Ghraib suburb of western Baghdad. One Iraqi was killed and 10 wounded in fighting in the northern city of Tal Afar.
Flames and black smoke billowed after saboteurs hit an oil pipeline north of Baghdad.
Witnesses said insurgents have virtually controlled the town of Taji for the past several days.
US and Iraqi forces have begun moving against insurgent sympathisers among hardline Sunni religious leaders, arresting at least four and raiding offices of religious groups that had spoken against the Fallujah assault.
US officials are planning a house-to-house clearing operation in Fallujah to find boobytraps, weapons and guerillas still hiding.
Iraqi National Security Adviser Qassem Dawoud said the Fallujah assault was "accomplished" except for mopping up "evil pockets which we are dealing with now. The number of terrorists and Saddam (Hussein) loyalists killed has reached more than 1000," he said.
"As for the detainees, the number is 200."
Mr Allawi said he expected the operation in Fallujah to conclude today with a clear-cut victory over the terrorists.
"We have captured their safe houses, where they killed people," he said. "We have captured the masks they wore when they slaughtered and decapitated people."
But US commanders have warned that the insurgency in Iraq would continue. - AP
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