Falluja stormed by US forces

Intense air strikes, artillery and mortar fire rained down on the city. This reporter heard the crackle of firefights as troops advanced at least four blocks into the rebel stronghold, with helicopters flying overhead.

Flares lit up the night sky as the Marines earlier unleashed a barrage of tank and machinegun fire on a nearby railway station, clearing the way for the ground assault on the Sunni Muslim city. ‘‘We are determined to clean Falluja from the terrorists,’’ Prime Minister Iyad Allawi told a news conference in Baghdad, adding that the US-led operation had his authority.

Allawi visited Iraqi troops at the main US base near Falluja, 50 km west of Baghdad, a few hours before the main offensive began, and told them they had to free the people of the city who had been ‘‘taken hostage’’ by insurgents. ‘‘Your job is to arrest the killers but if you kill them then let it be,’’ he said. ‘‘May they go to hell,’’ shouted the soldiers. ‘‘To hell they will go,’’ Allawi replied. Intense fighting shook Falluja in the morning with F-16 fighters screaming across cloudy skies, dropping bombs. When air attacks eased, artillery shells rained down. Cobra helicopters fired rockets and gunfire crackled as US forces peered through binoculars at guerrilla targets.

Between thunderous explosions, a cleric with a booming voice at a distant mosque rallied militants for what could be Iraq’s biggest battle since last year’s US-led invasion.

‘‘God is greatest, oh martyrs,’’ he said, telling fighters that waging Holy War was an honour. ‘‘Rise up mujahideen.’’ A hospital doctor in Falluja, Ahmed Ghanim, said 15 people had been killed and 20 wounded in the fighting.

Allawi said he was using emergency powers to impose a curfew on Falluja and its sister city of Ramadi further west, and to close Baghdad International Airport for 48 hours.

Allawi also tightened controls on the borders with Jordan and Syria, saying only essential goods would be allowed in. He said the curfew in Falluja and Ramadi would start at 6 p.m. He did not say how long it would last. Allawi declared 60 days of emergency rule on Sunday to crush an insurgency ahead of planned elections in January.

With the US offensive shaping up, Al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi called on Muslims to take up arms against America. ‘‘Oh people, the war has begun and the call for Jihad (Holy War) has been made,’’ he said in an Internet statement. Zarqawi’s appeal did not mention Falluja by name. The US Military says fighters loyal to him are holed up in the city along with Iraqi insurgents loyal to Saddam Hussein.

The Sunni Muslim Clerics’ Association urged Iraqi security forces not to fight with US troops in Falluja and ‘‘to beware of making the grave mistake of invading Iraqi cities under the banner of forces who respect no religion or human rights’’.

Two suicide bombers detonated their vehicles to try to stop US forces advancing in Ramadi, police said. There was no word on casualties or US confirmation of the attacks. Guerrillas also hit back in Baghdad, where a suicide bomber blew up his car near a US convoy on the main airport road, killing at least three people, witnesses said. Gunmen killed a US soldier in eastern Baghdad in a separate attack, the US Military said.

A bomb blew up after dark at a church in the south-western Dora area, witnesses said. Hospital staff said three people had been killed and 40 wounded in the bombing.

Inside Falluja, masked guerrillas roamed empty streets with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Men wept as they buried seven bodies, some of them fighters, in a narrow trench in Falluja’s makeshift graveyard in a sports stadium. —Reuters