![]() ![]() They came from different parts of the city, and at different times, and they all claimed the same thing – that they had been shot at by American snipers. Over a period of two days, I watched as women, children, and a few men were brought into the clinic by family members. Much of my reporting was done from a makeshift medical clinic in the middle of the city. We avoided using the US-controlled highway and entered the city through farm roads controlled by the local fighters. I was travelling with an aid convoy bringing food and medical supplies to residents of the city which had been under siege for a few days. When I first entered Falluja, home to some 300,000 people, on Ap– one day after a ceasefire had been reached – I watched in surprise as a US F-16 jets bombed a district in the city. I witnessed some of this destruction myself when I was in Falluja during the April 2004 siege. According to medical staff, at least 60 per cent of the fatalities were civilians. It is this event which triggered the first US assault in April 2004, which would kill – according to doctors I spoke with later at Falluja General Hospital – 736 Iraqis. Tribal leaders were quick to cooperate and even appointed a liaison to work with the US occupation authorities.īut because of events outside the Al-Qaid school in April 2003, the US military lost control of the city within a year, setting the scene for the gruesome killing of four Blackwater security contractors on March 31, 2004. Often omitted from the discourse about Falluja is that the city did not initially oppose the US occupation in 2003. On May 1, 2003, Bush declared the war in Iraqįalluja, a crossroads city located 60km west of Baghdad along the main highway to Jordan, remains in tatters nearly four years after a US military siege labelled “Operation Phantom Fury”. He writes here of the trials and tribulations Falluja faces as it rebuilds after a war-ravaged past: Tthe events in Falluja in late April 2003 helped fuel anger throughout the country and led to a 2004 siege of the city.ĭahr Jamail was one of a handful of western journalists in Falluja during the April 2004 siege. Human Rights Watch, however, disputed the military’s accounts citing ballistic evidence and called for an independent investigation. ![]() The US military said its soldiers had responded properly after coming under “effective fire” from some 25 armed men hiding within the Iraqi crowds outside the school and atop adjacent buildings. Seventeen Iraqis were killed and scores wounded. On April 28, 2003, US soldiers occupying the Al-Qaid school in Falluja opened fire on dozens of demonstrators who had been protesting the use of the premises as a forward base for the US 82nd Airborne Division. Iraqis run for cover after US forces opened fire on protesters in Falluja on Ap ![]()
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