Fallujah battle leaves 13 Iraqis dead

Fierce fighting between US marines, backed by fighter aircraft, and insurgents using small arms and mortars in the volatile city of Fallujah killed 13 Iraqis and wounded 14 others, hospital officials said today.

The overnight violence, which continued into the morning, came as US Secretary of State Colin Powell made an unannounced trip to Baghdad for talks with top Iraqi officials.

“We are facing challenges in the weeks ahead that we are determined to overcome,” Powell said after meeting interim President Ghazi al-Yawer.

Powell’s visit followed a decision by Iraqi authorities to abruptly postpone a national conference of political, religious and civic leaders considered a crucial step on the road to democracy amid disarray over choosing delegates and boycott threats by key factions.

Officials said the two-week delay of the gathering – which by law was to have been held by the end of July – came at the request of the United Nations, which wanted to persuade more people to attend the gathering and they insisted it would have no effect on the country’s first democratic elections scheduled for January.

“We didn’t want to postpone. It was upon the strong recommendation of the United Nations that we postponed for two weeks,” al-Yawer said today.

Regarding national elections scheduled for January, the president said, “we are working around the clock to make sure we are ready on time.”

In Fallujah, marines and Iraqi troops engaged in an hours long battle with insurgents, the military said. Witnesses reported hearing scores of mortar rounds fired toward the city’s eastern edge, where Americans are based, and planes flying overhead.

The military said the fighting began when insurgents attacked a joint patrol of marines and Iraqi troops with gunfire, mortars and rocket propelled grenades. The troops responded with gunfire, tank fire and aircraft bombing raids, which hit a building the insurgents had fled to, the military reported.

Dr Salim Ibrahim at Fallujah General Hospital said an estimated 13 Iraqis were killed and 14 others wounded. He could not give an exact count of the dead, because many of the bodies had been torn apart in the bombings.

Iraq has been wracked by an unending wave of attacks, kidnappings and other violence in the 15 months since Saddam Hussein’s regime fell.