Doctor Reveals Falluja's Horror Toll

Aljazeera




At least 450 Iraqis have been killed and more than 1000 others wounded in fighting in the city of Falluja this week, says a doctor who runs the city's main hospital.

Dr Rafi Hayad, the director of the main hospital supplied the figures to the Reuters news agency. The agency has given no explanation of how Hayad reached his figures.

In Baghdad an aide to a member of the interim Governing Council said on Friday more than 400 Iraqis have been killed and 1000 wounded in a six-day US offensive against insurgents in Falluja. 

"To this day, more than 400 Iraqis have been killed and more than 1,000 others wounded in Falluja," said Hatem al-Husseini, an aide to council member Muhsin Abdul Hameed from the Iraqi Islamic Party.

"These numbers were given to us from Falluja, from all hospitals, and they are correct 100 percent," he told AFP. The Iraqi Islamic Party was leading mediations to evacuate casualties, bring in supplies and end hostilities in the town west of Baghdad.

'Thank You Paul Bremer"

David Martinez

Seven weeks away and Baghdad has changed dramatically. Our old hotel, scene of alternative journalism and Iranian pilgrims, no longer allows Westerners out of safety concerns, both for us and for them. The Iranians stopped visiting after the bombings of the Shia mosques in early March, plus the border was closed or curtailed on the Iraqi side.  And the Mount Lebanon Hotel bombing, which blew out windows all over the neighborhood, sent the foreign journos scurrying back to walled compounds or guarded apartments. And I can hardly blame them. I am writing from inside one myself.

I am warned not to walk the streets alone, even during the day. There is now a significant anti-foreigner sentiment in the city that did not exist as strongly before. In any Shia neighborhood, pictures of Mukhtadar Al Sadr hang on every doorway, where before they did not. Overnight, the son of the Shia martyr is the new hero of the resistance.