Agence France-Presse – 2004-04-12 08:47:00
http://www.news.com.au/common/printpage/0,6093,9231695,00.html
(April 9, 2004) — Thousands of Sunni and Shiite Muslims forced their way through US military checkpoints Thursday to ferry food and medical supplies to the besieged Sunni bastion of Fallujah where US marines are trying to crush insurgents.
Troops in armoured vehicles tried to stop the convoy of cars and pedestrians from reaching the town located 50 kilometers west of Baghdad. But US forces were overwhelmed as residents of villages west of the capital came to the convoy’s assistance, hurling insults and stones at the beleaguered troops.
Some 20 kilometers west of Baghdad, a US patrol was attacked just moments before the Iraqi marchers arrived. Armed insurgents could be seen dancing around two blazing military vehicles. Two US Humvees tried to stop the marchers but were forced to drive off as residents joined the marchers, shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is great).
US troops again blocked the highway further west, but were forced to let the Iraqis past as they came under a hail of stones. Sitting on top of supply trucks, young men also hurled empty bottles of water and waved their shoes in sign of disdain at the US troops.
Sunnis and Shiites Join in Public Demonstrations against US
The cross-community demonstration of support for Fallujah had been organized by Baghdad clerics both Sunni and Shiite amid reports that the death toll in the town had reached 105 since late Tuesday. The rare display of unity came after Shiite radicals launched an uprising in cities across central and southern Iraq, shattering a year of relative tolerance of the US-led occupation from the country’s majority community.
In Baghdad, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the US commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq, faced tough questioning about the mounting civilian casualties in Fallujah and allegations that US marines were blocking delivery of humanitarian aid. “We are not cutting off humanitarian aid to the people of Fallujah. We are working multiple initiatives (for aid delivery) that have to be coordinated with the commander on the ground,” he said.
The marchers set off from the Um al-Qora mosque in west Baghdad where well-wishers donated food, drinks and medicine. “No Sunnis, no Shiites, yes for Islamic unity,” the marchers chanted. “We are Sunni and Shiite brothers and will never sell our country.”
They carried portaits of Shiite radical leader Moqtada Sadr, as well as pictures of Sunni icon, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the Palestinian Hamas group who was assassinated in an Israeli air raid last month. “Our families in Fallujah, remember that our dead go to heaven and theirs to hell,” read a banner held aloft by the crowd.
Relief Effort Sponsored by the Iraqi Red Crescent
Mosque imam Sheikh Ahmad Abdel Ghafur al-Samarrai said the US-led coalition had given the Iraqi Red Crescent permission to organize a relief convoy but made no secret of his hostility to the US offensive in Fallujah. “The Iraqi Red Crescent got permission from the coalition, following negotiations over one day and one night to bring these supplies into the city,” Samarrai said.
“Baghdad residents decided to send initially 90 cars with food and medicines to Fallujah families. We want to express solidarity with our brothers who are being bombed by warplanes and tanks,” he told AFP. “It is a form of jihad (holy war) which can also come in the form of demonstrations, donations and fighting. The people who are occupied have the right to fight occupation, whatever the means they use.”
The Sunni cleric called on US commanders to stop the bloody offensive they launched in Fallujah on Tuesday after four US civilian contractors were killed in the town and two of their bodies mutilated.
“This only brings hatred and enmity,” Samarrai said of the US assault. “They killed the elderly praying at the mosques, as well as women and children. This is indiscriminate killing.”
The cleric said he opposed the way the bodies of the American contractors had been treated but insisted that what the US marines were now doing in Fallujah was no better. They “are doing the same by mutilating the residential neighborhoods,” he said.
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