PANAMA CITY, Nov 13 (AFP) - US troops have wrested the Iraqi city of Fallujah from insurgent control, although the battle for the rebel stronghold is not over, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saturday.
Iraqi and US troops are "operating in one way or another in much if not all of the city at the present time," Rumsfeld said during a visit to Panama.
"Needless to say there still will be pockets of resistance and areas that will be difficult, so I don't mean to suggest that it is concluded. It's not, to be sure.
"Clearly there have been a large number of terrorists that have been killed or captured, and that's a good thing for the people of Iraq, to have that safe heaven no longer a safe haven."
In Iraq, officials said the battle to retake the rebel bastion was over, with more than 1,000 insurgents killed, but that the country's most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had fled.
"I expect that today or tomorrow all the operations will end. We still need to clear those who are hidden here or there," Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said.
11/13/2004 21:43 GMT - AFP