Fallujah 'like hell' as US blazes in

The skies over Fallujah lit up from the flashes of air and artillery barrages as US troops launched an offensive to seize key insurgent strongholds in a city that became the major sanctuary for Islamic extremists who fought Marines to a standstill last April.

Heavy firing continued into the pre-dawn hours today, and residents reached by satellite telephone reported the constant drone of warplanes overhead.

As night fell a civilian living in the centre of Fallujah said hundreds of houses had been destroyed.

“Every minute, hundreds of bombs and shells are exploding,” Fadril al-Badrani said in an interview. “The north of the city is in flames. I can also see fire and smoke … Fallujah has become like hell.”

A US military spokesman estimated that 42 insurgents were killed across the city in bombardment and skirmishes before the main assault began yesterday. Two marines were killed when their bulldozer flipped over into the Euphrates near Fallujah.

Hours after starting the offensive, US tanks and Humvees from the 1st Infantry Division entered the north-eastern Askari neighbourhood, the first ground assault into an insurgent bastion.

In the north-western area of the city, US troops advanced slowly after dusk on the Jolan neighbourhood, a warren of alleyways where Sunni militants have dug in. Some were inside by dawn today.

US troops cut off electricity to the city, and most private generators were not working – either because their owners wanted to conserve fuel or the wires had been damaged by explosions.

Residents said they were without running water and were worried about food shortages because most shops in the city have been closed for the past two days.

Masked insurgents roamed Fallujah streets throughout the day. One group of four fighters, two of them draped with belts of ammunition, moved through narrow passageways, firing on US forces with small arms and mortars. Mosque loudspeakers blared: “God is great, God is great.”

The top US commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, predicted a “major confrontation” in the operation he said was called “al-Fajr”, Arabic for “dawn”.

He told reporters in Washington that 10,000 to 15,000 US troops along with a smaller number of Iraqi forces were encircling the city.

The offensive is considered the most important military effort to re-establish control over Sunni strongholds west of Baghdad before elections in January.

“One part of the country cannot remain under the rule of assassins … and the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime,” US Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said.

He predicted “there aren’t going be large numbers of civilians killed and certainly not by US forces.”