Reuters Posted online: Saturday, November 06, 2004 at 0413 hours IST Updated: Saturday, November 06, 2004 at 1322 hours IST
Falluja (Iraq), November 6: Air and artillery strikes shook the rebel-held Iraqi city of Falluja on Friday night after US forces, using leaflets and loudspeakers, urged civilians to leave.
UN chief Kofi Annan warned against an all-out offensive to take the city which he said could threaten national elections due in January.
The latest bombardment was the heaviest in months and shook the entire city, locals said. There was no immediate word on casualties.
US troops sealed all roads to Falluja on Friday and in Arabic leaflets and loudspeaker messages urged women, children and non-fighting age men to flee, but said they would arrest any man under 45 trying to enter or leave the city.
"The American forces call on women, children and civilians to leave Falluja for their own safety," said the leaflet.
But an all-out military offensive would further anger Iraqis and threaten the Jan. 27 poll, Annan warned in letters to President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
Allawi and his US-led backers say Falluja is the center of the insurgency in Iraq and see capturing it as crucial to ensuring the election goes ahead on time and is free and fair.
Annan's comments highlight longstanding differences with Washington over how best to restore peace in Iraq.
"The threat or actual use of force not only risks deepening the sense of alienation of certain communities, but would also reinforce perceptions among the Iraqi population of a continued military occupation," The Los Angeles Times quoted him as writing.
'IT WILL BE SOON'
Most of the Sunni Muslim city's 300,000 people have already fled after weeks of intensive air and ground bombardments and clashes between insurgents and U.S. Marines.
"We are making last preparations. It will be soon. We are just awaiting orders from Prime Minister Allawi," Marine Corps Colonel Michael Shupp told Reuters near Falluja.
US warplanes and artillery bombarded the city, 32 miles west of Baghdad, earlier on Friday after overnight strikes that hospital officials said killed at least three people, wounded four and razed five homes.
The US military said the overnight raids destroyed rebel positions and arms caches. Insurgents fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at US positions on the outskirts of the city, killing one soldier and wounding five more.
There was no immediate word on civilian casualties from the later attacks.
Two marines were killed and four wounded in combat on Thursday in Anbar province that includes Falluja and the city of Ramadi, also expected to be included in any offensive.
Allawi met European Union leaders in Brussels on Friday and was expected to return to Iraq after that.
He secured a modest $21 million package from the 25-member bloc to support the elections and to help fund a possible UN protection force for the voting.
The United States and Britain hope a successful election will help defuse the increasingly bloody insurgency that has blighted their success in toppling Saddam Hussein last year.
In a speech to EU leaders, Allawi also sought help to choke off the flow of foreign Islamic militants his government, the United States and Britain say form the core of the insurgency.
"We need your help in persuading Iraq's neighbors that fueling violence in Iraq will only damage their own security in the long term," he said, in a copy of the speech given to journalists by Britain's foreign secretary.
"I hope the European Union will use its relations with Syria and Iran to deliver that message in the clearest of terms."
The US military says about 1,000 to 6,000 Saddam loyalists and militants led by Jordanian al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are holed up in Falluja
Zarqawi's fighters have claimed responsibility for hostage beheadings and some of Iraq's bloodiest bombings.
The US military says the assault on Falluja will succeed where an April one failed because this time it will be ordered by an Iraqi government and Iraqi forces will be involved. In April, Iraqi units refused to fight with US troops.
The April battles, which coincided with a Shi'ite revolt in the south, sparked a wave of kidnappings of foreigners aimed at driving US-led forces and foreign workers from Iraq.
A Nepali cook abducted on Monday in Baghdad has been freed, the Nepali government said. Two Lebanese held in Iraq for five weeks were also freed, a Lebanese Foreign Ministry source said.
Falluja (Iraq), November 6: Air and artillery strikes shook the rebel-held Iraqi city of Falluja on Friday night after US forces, using leaflets and loudspeakers, urged civilians to leave.
