Iraq says Fallujah offensive over but Zarqawi slips the net

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - Iraq said that the battle to retake the rebel bastion of Fallujah was over, with more than 1,000 insurgents killed, but that the country`s most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had fled.
At the same time, the US military, which spearheaded the six-day assault, argued that commanders on the ground had yet to declare the operation over.
"Operation Fajr (Dawn) has been achieved and only the malignant pockets remain that we are dealing with through a clean-up operation," Qassem Daoud, secretary of state for national security, told a Baghdad press conference.
He said that Zarqawi, whose supporters had made Fallujah their base, and a militant cleric who was one of his top aides had slipped through their fingers.
"Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Abdullah Junabi have fled," Daoud said, "leaving their supporters to taste death."
Asked about the situation in the south of the city, where violent clashes had erupted Saturday afternoon, Daoud said: "The mission is accomplished and there only remains these few pockets, which are being cleaned up."
Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was more cautious.
"I expect that today or tomorrow all the operations will end. We still need to clear those who are hidden here or there," he said on a visit to Nasiriyah.
US marine spokesman Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert, however, said that the largest military offensive in Iraq since last year`s invasion still rumbled on.
"Military commanders and troops on the ground will make their determination (of when the battle is finished) and to this point that determination has not been made," he told AFP.
"We will continue to engage pockets of resistance in the city and eliminate them one-by-one until the job is done," Gilbert said.
The assault, which followed an April attack by US-led forces that ended in a stalemate with rebels in control and hundreds dead, is aimed at ending Iraq`s insurgency so elections can go ahead as planned in January.
Daoud said more than 1,000 insurgents were killed and 200 captured so far.
As late as Friday night, a US marine general said only 80 percent of Fallujah had been occupied and that savage house-to-house fighting continued, with marines fighting a tenacious enemy.
"The goal right now is to continue until we have broken their back and their spirit to continue to keep the heat on them," Lieutenant General John Sattler said.
The military had said that 2,000-2,500 rebels were in the city when the assault started. US estimates said at least 600 insurgents had been killed, but rebel casualties have been impossible to independently verify.
On Wednesday, the military said Fallujah, which became a symbol of the insurgency against US troops and Allawi`s government, would be under control within 48 hours.
On Thursday, that was pushed back to Saturday. By midday Saturday, air strikes and cannon fire could be heard as troops targeted a suspected rebel spot.
"It is not going to end tomorrow," said one US officer.
With international aid agencies warning about the plight of civilians trapped in the city an Iraqi Red Crescent convoy of emergency supplies entered on Saturday but only got as far the US-occupied hospital.
"They are in the general hospital, but until now the Americans will not let them distribute medical supplies in the city," said Red Crescent spokeswoman Ferdus al-Ibadi, about a team of some 50 volunteers and three doctors who had travelled from Baghdad to Fallujah.
The US military had told the Red Crescent that any aid convoy sent to Fallujah would not be permitted to enter as it was too dangerous.
"The people inside Fallujah are dying and starving, they need us. It is our duty as a humanitarian agency to do our job for these people in these circumstances," Ibadi said.
In Washington, US President George W. Bush said the violence was to be expected with Iraq`s first elections in decades ahead.
"As those elections draw near, the desperation of the killers will grow and the violence could escalate. Success of democracy in Iraq will be a crushing blow to the forces of terror and the terrorists know it," he said.
The situation elsewhere in Iraq remained unstable.
The Shiite holy city of Najaf south of Baghdad joined a growing list of cities to be put under curfew, while Baghdad`s international airport was closed indefinitely to commercial flights.
Fallujah, Baghdad, Mosul, Baiji, Hilla, Samarra and Hawijah are also under a military-enforced lockdown that has been imposed under a 60-day nationwide state of emergency declared before the Fallujah assault.
With the insurgents growing bolder by the day in the northern capital of Mosul, Allawi said that Iraqi security forces were massing and would move on the city of more than a million people soon.
"We will be moving in the next day or so in Mosul to restore the rule of law," he said, without providing details.
An AFP reporter saw looters rampage through a palace in Mosul that had been used by a foreign company after the staff left at dawn.
The departure of the contractors who used the palace, which once belonged to a half-brother of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, came after it was the target of heavy fire overnight.
Lawlessness simmered in the rest of Mosul, where gunmen held key buildings, such as the provincial governor`s office, and patrolled the streets in cars in the absence of Iraqi police or national guardsmen.
On Friday, an AFP reporter said he saw truckloads of gunmen roam the streets while police either cowered in their stations or were shot.
But Lieutenant Colonel Paul Hastings, the US military spokesman in Mosul, insisted the situation was under control.

11/13/2004 - 20:55 GMT - AFP