Clerics threaten holy war if Fallujah offensive continues

American warplanes pounded the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah today after the city’s leaders suspended peace talks and rejected the Iraqi government’s demands to turn over terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Fallujah clerics insisted al-Zarqawi was not in the city and called for civil disobedience across Iraq if the Americans try to overrun the insurgent bastion.

If civil disobedience does not stop the offensive, clerics said they would proclaim a jihad, or holy war, against multinational forces ”as well as those collaborating with them.”

Al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid and Jihad group – which beheaded British hostage Ken Bigley – has claimed responsibility for yesterday’s twin bombings inside Baghdad’s heavily guarded Green Zone – home to US officials and the Iraqi leadership.

At least six people were killed, including four American civilians.

The bold, unprecedented suicide attack, dramatised the militants’ ability to penetrate the heart of the US-Iraqi leadership even as authorities step up military operations to suppress Sunni Muslim insurgents in other parts of the country.

Jets and artillery hammered Fallujah through the night in an apparent effort to quash terrorists suspected of planning attacks timed with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins today.

“The operations were designed to target the large terrorist element operating in the area of Fallujah,” the US command said. “This element has been planning to use the holy month of Ramadan for attacks.”

Targets hit included several key planning centres, a weapons storage facility, two safe houses, a terrorist meeting site and several illegal checkpoints used by the Zarqawi network, the US military said.

Witnesses said that US troops arrested Khaled al-Jumeili, a cleric who led the city’s delegates in peace negotiations with the government. They said he was held as he left a mosque after the Friday prayers in a village 10 miles south of Fallujah.

Iraqi leaders have been in negotiations to restore government control to Fallujah, which fell under the domination of clerics and their armed followers after the end of the three-week Marine siege last April.

Allawi warned on Wednesday that Fallujah must surrender al-Zarqawi and other foreign fighters or face military action. Talks broke down when city representatives rejected the “impossible condition” since even the Americans were unable to catch al-Zarqawi.

During Friday sermons in Sunni mosques in Baghdad and elsewhere, preachers read a statement from Fallujah clerics declaring that al-Zarqawi’s presence “is a lie just like the weapons of mass destruction lie”.

“Al-Zarqawi has become the pretext for flattening civilians houses and killing innocent civilians,” the statement said.

The clerics said that in the event of an all-out attack, they would call on all Muslims to launch a civil disobedience campaign against the Americans and their Iraqi allies.

“In case the interim government and occupation troops make no response following the civil disobedience campaign, Muslim scholars and representatives of all Islamic and national groups will declare jihad all over Iraq and declare a mobilisation against the occupation troops as well as those collaborating with them,” the statement said.

Three people were killed and seven others injured during the night, according to the city’s hospital.

On Thursday, the hospital said at least five people were killed and 16 wounded.

A car bomb exploded near a Baghdad police station today, killing one person and injuring at least 11 others.

Interior Ministry spokesman Colonel Adnan Abdul-Rahman said initial reports indicated that five policemen were among the injured in the al-Doura neighbourhood.

The target may have been a police patrol nearby, he added.

A hospital official said three of the injured were in critical conditions.