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Diplomatic pressure leads to compromise in Fallujah

A US soldier's helmet is seen on the asphalt after an attack on a US Army convoy yesterday outside the town of Baqoubah, north of Baghdad, Iraq. A US soldier was killed and another wounded yesterday when a roadside bomb exploded near their convoy, a US military spokesman said. PHOTO: AP

US Marines announced the end of the bloody, nearly four-week-old siege of Fallujah, saying yesterday their forces would pull back from the city and allow a new, all-Iraqi force commanded by a former Saddam Hussein-era general to move in and take over security.

The deal came after intense international pressure on the US to find a peaceful resolution to the standoff. Only last week, US commanders had been threatening to launch an all-out attack on the city to root out Sunni insurgents.

Meanwhile, 10 US soldiers were killed yesterday -- eight of them in a car bomb explosion south of Baghdad. The two others were killed by a convoy attack in Baghdad and a roadside bomb in Baqoubah, north of the capital.

The deaths raises to 126 the number of US service members killed in combat this month, the bloodiest month for US forces in Iraq. The military announced that another soldier died in a vehicle accident in western Baghdad. At least 736 US troops have died in Iraq since the war began in March last year. Up to 1,200 Iraqis also have been killed this month.

A foreign civilian, thought to be an Australian, was shot dead in an attack on his car in the southern city of Basra. Three members of an Iraqi family were killed when a rocket hit a residential building in the northern city of Beiji.

Under a deal reached late Wednesday, a new, all-Iraqi military force known as the Fallujah Protection Army (FPA) is to start moving into Fallujah to impose security today, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne said.

Marines will end their siege of Fallujah, pulling back from their positions in and around Fallujah, while the FPA forms a new cordon around it and then moves into the city, Byrne said.

"The plan is that the whole of Fallujah will be under the control of the FPA," he said.

The siege, launched on April 5 after the killing and mutilation of four American civilians in Fallujah, killed hundreds of Iraqis, including many civilians according to hospital sources. At least eight US Marines were killed, but a full American casualty count from the battle has not been released.

On the southern edge of Fallujah, US Marines from 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment began packing up gear yesterday, saying they had been ordered to withdraw from the industrial zone they have held throughout the siege. Bulldozers flattened sand barriers that troops had set up along the city's southern edge.

Byrne said the Marines would remain around the Fallujah area, but not in an immediate cordon or inside the city.

The FPA will consist of up to 1,100 Iraqi soldiers led by a former general from Saddam's military. Byrne identified the commander only as General Salah, a former division commander under Saddam. The force will be subordinate to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

Many of the guerrillas in Fallujah are thought to be former members of Saddam's regime or military. Last week, Iraq's top US administrator, Paul Bremer, announced that the new Iraqi army would start recruiting top former Saddam-era officers who were not involved in the regime's crimes.

The moves came after three days of intense violence in Fallujah, aired live on television screens with images of explosions and burning buildings. The battles increased pressure on the US to find a resolution to the standoff.

Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, a member of the US-appointed Governing Council also called on the US to stop attacks in Fallujah and said if the US refused, his Iraqi Islamic Party would consider withdrawing from the council.

"We call on the American troops that are bombing Fallujah to stop immediately and withdraw outside of the city," Abdul-Hamid told al-Jazeera television.
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