US forces poised for Mosul assault, hunt down last Fallujah rebels

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - US-led forces hunted down final pockets of resistance in Fallujah and were poised for an offensive to recapture the west bank of the city of Mosul after battling insurgents in Sunni Muslim areas across Iraq.
As the US-led assault on the former rebel stronghold of Fallujah entered its second week, sporadic bursts of gunfire crackled through southern districts on Tuesday.
The last of the insurgents were taking shelter amid palm trees and in bullet-pocked buildings, said an AFP reporter inside the Sunni Muslim stronghold which lies west of the Iraqi capital.
US Colonel Michael Regner, chief of operations of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said marines were clashing with small groups of rebels, sometimes a dozen at a time.
"Very few have given up," he said in a telephone interview from Fallujah with reporters at the Pentagon.
"They are fighting to the death, and they`re making it difficult on marines and soldiers."
But he said marines had accomplished all their objectives. "We can go anywhere we want in that city."
An AFP reporter said injured fighters are being left behind in empty houses, with a simple piece of cloth to cover their wounds, as the fighters -- like the civilian population -- had run out of medicine as well as food.
The US military said it was investigating claims that a marine shot dead an unarmed wounded man as he lay in a Fallujah mosque after pictures of the incident were broadcast on US television stations.
The First Marine Division said it wanted to determine whether the marine acted in self-defence when killing the rebel on Saturday, violated military law or failed to comply with the international Law of Armed Conflict.
CBS News showed a still photo from the film depicting the marine standing above a figure slumped against a wall aiming his rifle at the man`s body.
"He`s dead now," one marine in the squad is heard shouting.
Fallujah is effectively under US and Iraqi control, but the military has yet to declare the end of the largest operation since last year`s US-led invasion of Iraq.
Thirty-nine US soldiers have been killed and 275 wounded so far in Operation Dawn which began a week ago Monday, while at least five Iraqi troops and more than 1,200 insurgents have also died, according to the US military.
There has been no independent confirmation of the casualty toll.
Regner said US forces had also detained 1,052 people, of whom less than 20 were non-Iraqis, despite American and Iraqi government reports that much of the revolt had been staged by Arabs from other countries.
The Fallujah assault has also raised fears about a humanitarian disaster with tens of thousands of residents forced to flee the city, while the plight of the unknown number of civilians who stayed behind remained uncertain.
US troops have prevented a Red Crescent aid convoy from entering Fallujah, a city of some 300,000 civilians in normal times, saying it was too dangerous.
Bulldozers powered down roads, clearing away rubble, electricity cables and other debris left behind by eight days of fierce fighting and weeks of punishing air raids, an AFP correspondent embedded with the military said.
In northern Iraq, some 1,200 US troops were preparing to launch a major assault to wrest control of the west bank of the Tigris river in the city of Mosul from rebels.
"We want to secure police stations on the west side of the city and we will do a sweep through the area from west to east," said US military official Stuart Williams.
He said the troops were seeking to retake a dozen police stations abandoned or overrun by insurgents during a string of attacks last week.
Mosul, 370 kilometres (230 miles) from the capital, has been hit by a spike in lawlessness as rebels flocked to the city following the US-Iraqi assault launched on November 8 in Fallujah.
A correspondent embedded with the troops said the US military has closed all five bridges in Mosul and set up concrete and barbed wire barricades.
In an audiotape posted on an Internet site, a man claiming to be Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq`s most wanted man, exhorted insurgents around the country to rise up against US-led forces, brace for new battles and attack oil pipelines.
In the latest reported American death in combat, a US soldier was killed and another injured in an attack on their convoy north of the Iraqi capital on Tuesday, the military said.
But Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, was calm with US troops out on patrol.
On Monday, US-led forces in the city battled with up to 150 insurgents, killing at least 21 of them, according to William Chlebowski, the acting US commander.
In the capital, US troops arrested the deputy head of Iraq`s interim parliament, Nassir Ayef, in a dawn operation at his Baghdad home, a spokesman from his Iraqi Islamic Party said.
Iyad al-Samarrai suggested that Ayef`s arrest was linked to "pressure exerted on the Islamic Party because of its nationalist position regarding events in Iraq."
The Islamic Party, a Sunni movement, quit the government last week in protest at the Fallujah assault.
On the hostage front, France has asked the United States to give it access "as soon as possible" to the freed Syrian driver of two French reporters kidnapped on August 20, Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said.
His comments on Europe 1 radio came amid reports that French diplomats had still been unable to see Mohammed al-Jundi, who was found by US forces in Fallujah at the end of last week.
French authorities believe Jundi may be able to provide new clues about the fate of Christian Chesnot, 37, of Radio France Internationale and Georges Malbrunot, 41, of Le Figaro, kidnapped with him.

11/16/2004 - 12:40 GMT - AFP