Iraqi Red Crescent pull out of Fallujah

The Iraqi Red Crescent Society withdrew from the battleground city of Fallujah today amid concerns over continuing insecurity, the organisation’s chief said.

US-led forces later detained eight men unaffiliated with the aid group who had sought shelter in the group’s building.

Saad Hakki said coalition forces asked the group to withdraw “temporarily” from its building in Fallujah. The neighbourhood where it is located has seen sporadic fighting since a campaign by American and Iraqi forces last month to uproot insurgents operating in the city.

He said the Red Crescent’s seven employees in Fallujah hoped to return soon.

“The Red Crescent pulled out for security reasons,” Hakki said. “Maybe, we will return tomorrow, maybe the day after. We don’t know,” he said.

A US military spokeswoman, Maj. M. Naomi Hawkins, confirmed the group’s departure, but said it had chosen to leave the city on its own.

Coalition forces escorted Red Crescent staff members from the city and later detained eight military aged men who sought shelter in the building along with dozens of other Iraqis following the launch of the coalition military operation against Fallujah.

The Red Crescent, sister organisation to Geneva’s Red Cross, set up operations in Fallujah two weeks ago to assist Iraqis civilians who had stayed behind during the fighting.

US-led forces are still battling pockets of resistance in Fallujah, but it is mostly under control of US and Iraqi troops. Hakki said there had been recent ”skirmishes” near the Red Crescent’s base in the city, located 40 miles west of Baghdad.

It was not immediately clear what effect the Red Crescent’s withdrawal will have on Fallujah, a city of about 300,000 people, most of whom fled before the US-led military operation started.

Many Iraqis have complained that the military onslaught against the city destroyed infrastructure and led to a deteriorated humanitarian situation in the city. Some 1,500 protesting Fallujah residents displaced by the fighting demanded today that the government return them to their homes.