Reply #31: Casting light onto "130"

[Earth_First]

7 Apr 2004 10:14 GMT DJ

60 Iraqis Killed In Fallujah Fighting Overnight-Hospital

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP)--Fighting overnight between U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents killed 60 Iraqis and wounded more than 130, hospital officials said Wednesday.

Marines and gunmen were engaged in heavy battles in the Dubat neighborhood on the eastern side of Fallujah and in other part in the center of the city, witnesses said. U.S. warplanes opened fire on groups of Iraqis in the street.

Rocket-propelled grenade fire set a U.S. Humvee ablaze, injuring soldiers inside, witnesses said.

Among the dead were 26 people - including 16 children and up to eight women - killed when warplanes struck four houses late Tuesday, said Hatem Samir, head of the clinic at Fallujah Hospital. Others were killed in street battles before dawn and into the day Wednesday.

Messages from mosque loudspeakers called for "jihad," or holy war. Some gunmen in the street were seen carrying mortars, and some women carried automatic weapons.

Hundreds of U.S. Marines and Iraqi police have surrounded Fallujah, west of Baghdad, since Monday in a largescale operation aimed at uprooting Sunni Arab guerrillas behind attacks on U.S. troops.

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