US military extend Fallujah ceasefire

The US military extended a ceasefire for Fallujah for at least two more days, backing down from warnings of an all-out US marine assault and announcing that American and Iraqi forces would begin joint patrols in the city.

The patrols are to begin as early as tomorrow, and Fallujah officials will announce in the city that anyone seen carrying a weapon will be considered hostile.

Meanwhile, a US general told Associated Press that troops will move into a base on the edge of the Shiite holy city of Najaf to be abandoned by Spanish troops when they withdraw from Iraq in the coming weeks.

But the Americans will remain away from holy sites – an effort to avoid outraging Iraq’s Shiite majority, which opposes any US foray near their most sacred shrine.

The troops aim to “counter the forces” of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Brigadier General Mark Hertling said.

A coalition spokesman, Dan Senor, said weapons were being stockpiled in mosques and schools in Najaf – a practice he said must stop.

The measures in Fallujah and Najaf were announced a day after President George Bush held a teleconference with senior national security and military advisers to discuss the situation in Fallujah and the rest of Iraq.

The moves appeared aimed at bringing a degree of control over the cities without reigniting the intense violence that began when US authorities moved on the two fronts simultaneously at the start of April.

The wave of fighting since has killed up to 1,200 Iraqis and 111 US troops, nearly as many in 25 days as the 115 Americans who were killed during the two-month invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein a year ago.

The deal to bring patrols into Fallujah meant extending the ceasefire, the US military said.

Military action in the city was still an option, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said, but the warning was dramatically toned down from those in the past week.

The new steps in Fallujah were not without risks.

There was little guarantee that guerrillas in Fallujah won’t attack joint US-Iraqi patrols.

Some marine commanders said privately they had hoped to push on with an offensive deeper into the city and were concerned patrols would become targets.

Iraqi security forces due to patrol with them were equally ill at ease.

“I don’t feel safe because the Americans themselves are not safe,” police Captain Jassim Abed said. “They get shot at. They can’t guarantee safety for themselves, so how can they guarantee my safety?”

US occupation leaders are under pressure not to launch major military action. Some US-picked Iraqi leaders were angered by the Fallujah siege. The top UN envoy for Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi – who has been asked by Washington to help pick a new government – warned the United States against assaults on Najaf or Fallujah

“When you surround a city, you bomb the city, when people cannot go to hospital, what name do you have for that? … If you have enemies there, this is exactly what they want you to do, to alienate more people so that more people support them rather than you,” Mr Brahimi said of Fallujah on ABC television’s This Week.

“In this situation, there is no military solution,” he said.

In the latest US deaths, a soldier was killed yesterday when a roadside bomb hit his patrol in eastern Baghdad.

A US Coast Guardsman also died of wounds suffered the night before in a suicide boat attack on oil facilities that killed two Navy sailors.

Iraq’s main outlet for oil exports, the Al-Basra terminal, was damaged and won’t be able to resume loading tankers until today at the earliest, said oil minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulloum.

The closure cost Iraq around 1 million barrels in exports the first day.

Mortar attacks in the northern city of Mosul killed two Iraqis outside a hotel, and an explosion outside a hospital killed two Iraqis and wounded 10, the US military said.

As US officials toned down recent warnings, they also spoke of progress in Fallujah. “At this point, it would not seem to be constructive for either side to be laying down ultimatums,” General Kimmitt said.