Bombardment of Falluja, four Iraqis killed in Baghdad, Karkouk
The American forces continued yesterday their bombardment of the southern part of Falluja city which has been exposed to a violent attack since November 8th.
The civil affairs official in the US marines, Leonard De Franchiski, said that the city still includes some resistance pockets. He added that "these pockets started to weaken."
Meantime news reports said that gunmen entered the city via the Euphrates or via old roads despite the tightened siege imposed by the American and Iraqi forces which continue bombardment and demolishing houses and mosques in search of the armed men.
The news reports indicated that some Iraqi volunteers and American soldiers started to remove scores of bodies from the streets.
Witnesses described the humanitarian conditions in Falluja as very bad, and that hundreds of bodies are scattered in the streets of the city which lack basic services, while the UNHCR expressed its concern over the conditions of civilians.
In Karkouk, the police said that two Iraqis were killed at least and another one was strongly injured in an explosion which took place yesterday morning in the downtown of the oil rich city, near a position for the American army.
The police director in the city, major Nourhan Youssef, said "two construction workers were at least killed while they were parking their car when the explosion took place and one of the passersby was strongly injured." In Baghdad, one booby trapped car explosion resulted in killing one Iraqi man and one woman and injuring other four.
The American army announced that the explosion took place in front of a police center for the Iraqi forces to the west of the capital.
Meanwhile, a group of Iraqi national, religious and political forces decided to boycott the elections due to be held by the beginning of 2005. This was expressed in a statement issued by these forces calling on the Iraqi people to boycott the elections "because of the grave risk undermining the future of Iraq, its sovereignty and territorial integrity." Among the main forces signatories to the statement were the university of Imam al-Khalisi, the Muslim scholars commission, the national trend movement, the Iraqi Trurkman front and the Democratic Christian party.