US forces yesterday warned residents of Fallujah through loud-speakers and leaflets that they would detain any man under 45 trying to enter or leave the rebel-held Iraqi city.
US troops also urged residents, in Arabic, to help them capture "terrorists" and warned women and children to leave the Sunni Muslim city, locals said.
The US military had no immediate comment.
Witnesses said US troops blocked roads around Fallujah and clashed with insurgents on the eastern and southeastern edges of the city yesterday. The US military also mounted fresh air strikes on parts of the city yesterday, wit-nesses said, ahead of a major offensive to crush insurgents.
They said insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades and mortars at US troops who were shelling from around the eastern and southeastern edges of the city.
Hospital officials said they were waiting for clashes to ease before sending out ambulances. Overnight air strikes had killed three people and wounded four, they said. There was no immediate word from the US military on the latest clashes.
It said earlier that its warplanes had mounted five strikes on rebel targets in Fallujah within seven hours overnight, hitting an arms cache, a rebel command post and other targets.
Residents said five houses were destroyed.
They said troops had sealed off all roads in and out of the Sunni Muslim city of 300,000 people, including the highway leading to the borders with Jordan and Syria, as US Marines prepared for a full assault designed to crush the rebels before nationwide elections in January.
Syrian officials also said the Iraqis closed a crossing point on the two countries' common border.
US Marines say they are awaiting orders from US President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who is visiting Europe, before storming Fallujah and Ramadi, another Sunni city and rebel stronghold west of Baghdad.
Most of Fallujah's population has already fled.
Insurgents also killed two US Marines and wounded four others in fighting in the area, the US military said yesterday.
The two Marines were killed on Thursday in Anbar province, which includes Fallujah, but the Marines refused to say where and how they died. In addition, a US soldier was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle on Thursday north of Baghdad.
Three British soldiers were killed on Thursday south of Baghdad and eight others were wounded when a suicide driver blew up his vehicle at a checkpoint. An Iraqi translator also died in the attack -- the single biggest loss of life for the British since August last year.
The Britons were part of the Black Watch regiment, a Scottish unit shifted to central Iraq from the relatively quiet south to free up US forces for the planned assault on Fallujah and other insurgent bastions north and west of the capital.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair had agreed to a US request to move British troops to central Iraq despite considerable opposition at home, even within his Labour Party.
Scottish Nationalist Party spokesman Angus Robertson warned that the deaths would have "profound implications" for public opinion in Scotland, where the Black Watch regiment is recruited.
The deteriorating security situation prompted the humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres to announce it was closing its operations in Iraq. CARE International withdrew from the country after its national director, Margaret Hassan, was kidnapped last month.
Also on Thursday in Ramadi, an Army unit attached to the Marines discovered a youth center boobytrapped with bombs, with a wire leading to a local mosque.
At another mosque in Ramadi, they found more than two tonnes of explosives along with other devices, including rifles, artillery rounds and mortar rounds.
An Iraqi known for cooperating with Americans was killed near Ramadi, police said. The assailants stopped a car carrying Sheik Bezei Ftaykhan, ordered the driver to leave and pumped about 30 bullets into the sheik's body, police said.
Yesterday, Nepalese Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat confirmed a Nepalese man abducted by gunmen on Monday along with an American, a Filipino and three Iraqis had been freed by his captors in Baghdad.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
RSS