posted on Apr, 9 2004 @ 08:44 AM
update:
U.S Forces have regained control of the city of Kut, however the fighting has intensified in other areas. Smoke was seen over the Baghdad skyline
this morning coming from a sealed off area. No explanation as to the cause of the smoke yet.
U.S. Forces Recapture Southern City of Kut; Brief Halt in Marine Assault on Fallujah Breaks
Down
In Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad and the scene of bloody fighting with Sunni insurgents this week - Marines called a halt to offensive operations
at noon, while a delegation of city leaders met with Marine commanders, said Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, commander of the 1st Battalion 5th Marine
Regiment.
But 90 minutes later, Marines were given the go-ahead to resume operations, Byrne said. U.S. forces were heard firing into the city soon after. The
reasons for the end of the suspension were not immediately clear, but it appeared negotiations never took place.
The heavy siege of the city, a bastion of anti-U.S. Sunni guerrillas, has angered even pro-U.S. Iraqi officials.
"These operations were a mass punishment for the people of Fallujah," Adnan Pachachi, a senior member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, told
Al-Arabiya TV. "It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah and we consider these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal."