US Pounds Fallujah, Sparks Humanitarian Crisis

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FALLUJA, Iraq, November 12.—The Iraqi Red Crescent Society has called on the US and Iraqi interim government forces to allow it to deliver foodstuffs, medicines and water a civilians who have decided to stay in Falluja, because of the disastrous conditions in the city, and have been refused, according to ANSA.
A US military spokesman stated that the Red Crescent had permission to help refugees around the city, but did not have access to the city itself, thus preventing it from saving wounded people – basically children and the elderly – unable to acquire foodstuffs and medicines and even water, given the total sealing imposed by the occupying forces and the continual aerial bombardments. In Cairo today, Daud al Bagestani, head of the Human Rights League in Iraq, qualified the US offensive on the city of Falluja a 'crime against humanity.' 'What is happening in Falluja and other Iraqi cities has nothing to do with combating terrorism, given that most of the victims are women, children and the elderly,' he affirmed in a phone link with the Qatari TV network Al Jazeerah. Meanwhile, members of the Iraqi forces are continuing their fierce confrontations with the US troops who are bombarding Falluja and massacring its inhabitants. The brutal US offensive is now in its fifth day and fighting has not halted, as the resistance is counterattacking with firing and explosions in various places, bringing the number of US fatalities to 22 in this city alone, with 178 injured, according to official and often doubted figures. The sound of bursts of machinegun fire and exploding grenades could be heard in many parts of the city, while US snipers were firing indiscriminately on anything that moved. According to EFE, in the last few hours the US aviation bombed the city of Mosul, the scenario since Thursday of fierce confrontations between US units backed up by the Iraqi police and groups of insurgents. The death of another US soldier was reported there. Witnesses in the city said, however, that fighting broke out again this morning and that the occupying forces were not visible in the streets, where the Iraqi police were facing the insurgents. A US soldier died and two were injured, along with an Iraqi interpreter, in an attack on Friday against their convoy in the south of Baghdad, the US Army confirmed. Yesterday, Friday, marine units sealed off the northern and eastern accesses to the rebel city of Ramadi, and detained dozens of people in this city located in the so-called Sunni triangle, EFE reports.



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