US troops capture most of Fallujah, Allawi relatives kidnapped

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - US-led troops occupied most of Fallujah and were confident of taking full control, as kidnappers pledged to kill Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi`s relatives unless the assault stopped.
As the military`s grip tightened on more than two-thirds of the city, the epicentre of Iraq`s insurgency, Iraqi troops found homes there where foreign hostages had been held and in some cases slaughtered.
In northern Iraq, scores of gunmen swooped on the city of Mosul and set up positions, aiming mortars and rockets at key US installations, as local police watched helplessly. At least five people were killed.
Violence also raged elsewhere, with at least five killed and 20 wounded in a car bomb attack in Baghdad, six Iraqi guards and a US soldier killed in a string of roadside bombings, and two British servicemen wounded.
With US marines backed by Iraqi troops moving from building to building in Fallujah to free the dusty, devastated city of insurgents, a US officer said they expected to take command of the rebel bastion before the weekend.
"If everything goes as planned we will take full control of the city in the next 48 hours," the officer said, on condition of anonymity, adding that it would take "at least 10 days to clear the city".
Signs of the gruesome killings of hostages were found by Iraqi troops in the northern districts, according to an Iraqi general claiming to be the chief spokesman for the operation.
"We have found hostage slaughterhouses in Fallujah that were used by these people and the black clothing that they used to wear to identify themselves, hundreds of CDs and whole records with names," Major General Abdul Qader Mohan said. When pressed, he was unable to provide further details.
Acting on the orders of Allawi after weeks of heavy US aerial and artillery bombardment, thousands of marines and Iraqi troops stormed Fallujah late Monday in an assault dubbed Operation Dawn.
Allawi has vowed to crush the rebellion ahead of elections planned for January, to provide greater security and wider participation in them, and sees the fight for Fallujah as key to achieving this goal.
But the tough-talking premier`s family became caught up in the mayhem when a gang in three cars abducted his cousin, Ghazi Allawi, his wife and their daughter-in-law in Baghdad overnight.
A previously unknown group threatened to kill three of Allawi`s relatives within 48 hours unless he halts the attack and releases all Iraqi prisoners. The threat was made in an Internet statement impossible to authenticate.
At least 11 US soldiers and two Iraqi troops have died in the offensive, while scores of insurgents have also been killed, the US military said. The figures could not be independently verified.
No civilian casualty figures have been made available.
In a video-tape air by Arab television station Al-Jazeera, the insurgents claimed to have captured 20 Iraqi national guards in Fallujah.
The video showed men in national guard uniform with their backs to the camera watched over by armed men. The station said it could not confirm if it was real or insurgent propaganda.
In Washington, US President George W. Bush said he had been told the assault was proceeding to plan.
Bush said military ground commander General George Casey told him: "things are going well in Fallujah, and they are making very good progress of securing that country."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose troops took part in the war in to oust former president Saddam Hussein, urged the US-led forces to stand firm.
"The real desire of these terrorists is to stop the elections because they know that if there are elections in Iraq, as there have been in Afghanistan, then that is a huge blow to them as terrorists," he told parliament in London.
In an effort to persuade die-hard rebels in the fiercely independent Sunni Muslim city to lay down their arms, Allawi offered an amnesty to those who had "committed no major crimes".
Sunni and Shiite figures have condemned the Fallujah assault, with Iraq`s main Sunni party quitting the government and calling for an election boycott.
The Red Cross and Red Crescent, meanwhile, expressed concern over the fate of the wounded, as the government said some of the tens of thousands of people who fled were ill and living in cramped conditions.
Up to a third of the 300,000-strong population may have stayed behind.
As the battle in Fallujah played out, violence exploded elsewhere.
At least five people were killed and 20 wounded by a car bomb near a police checkpoint in a busy commercial and residential area in eastern Baghdad late Wednesday, police said.
Doctors at the nearby Kindi hospital said they received four dead and 21 wounded of whom one died later, amid scenes of chaos as children, some in pyjamas, were rushed into the emergency room.
In Mosul, northern Iraq, at least five people were killed and an immediate curfew imposed after scores of gunmen descended on the city and set up positions, officials said.
The gunmen set up roadblocks, sandbag barriers, and mortar and rocket positions in several neighbourhoods, aiming them at two major US military installations.
Also in the north, six Iraqi national guards died in two roadside bomb attacks on their convoys, while just north of Baghdad a similar attack on a US convoy left one American soldier dead and one wounded.
A Turkish truck driver was also killed and his vehicle set alight by unidentified gunmen in northern Iraq, the fourth Turkish truck driver killed in the country in as many days, police said.

11/10/2004 - 22:45 GMT - AFP