Friday 29 October 2004 - Four Iraqis were killed and six injured in US air raids on the Al-Askary neighborhood, east of Falluja on Friday as the town braced for an US assault on it.

The US marines announced they were in preparations for a "decisive" assault on Falluja and the city of Ramadi even as the country's interim prime minister issued another ultimatum to the town's residents.

In Ramadi, west of Baghdad, fierce clashes erupted between Iraqi fighters and US troops at the eastern entrance of the city. Medical sources in Ramadi hospital said two women were injured in the clashes.

Prior to the clashes, three mortar rounds fell on the US military camp in the area, and heavy smoke was seen over the camp.

In Baquba, deputy governor of Dially Governorate Uqail Al-Adly was killed in an attack by unknown men when he parked his car in front of a commercial office in Al-Yarmouk neighborhood in the centre of the city.

Al-Adly is also a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Offensive

"We are gearing up for a major operation," Brigadier General Denis Hajlik told reporters at a base near Falluja. "If we do so, it will be decisive and we will whack them."

Hajlik, deputy commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said the expected operation against Falluja and Ramadi would also involve Iraqi forces.

The US military has been pounding targets in Falluja for the last several weeks leading to extensive casualties among residents and damage to the town's infrastructure.

Renewed talks

Against this backdrop of rising tension, the interim Iraqi government said it will dispatch a team headed by the deputy chairman of the Iraqi interim national council to meet with Falluja leaders, Aljazeera correspondent reported, quoting sources in the delegation.

Iyad Allawi "has agreed to a proposal by certain members of the National Council [Iraq's interim parliament] to find a peaceful solution" to the stand-off in Falluja, council member Ahmad al-Barrak said on Friday.

"Allawi said he did not have any objections but that this would be the last attempt" at mediation before a possible military assault against the town, al-Barrak said.

Talks between the US-backed interim government and delegates from Falluja collapsed in mid-October after Allawi ordered the town to surrender Jordanian fugitive Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and others in his al-Qaida-linked group or face invasion.

Strikes unabated

A Falluja negotiator said the mujahidin shura (council) - a body that says it represents at least some of the resistance forces in the city - along with local governors and tribal shaikhs had agreed in principle to restart talks provided the US military halts daily air strikes.

Lieutenant Colonel Hakim Karim Midab said local leaders would demand residents who had fled the fighting be allowed to return and be compensated for damage, and that US troops remove a checkpoint on the town's eastern entrance.

Midab said the city's leaders would also push for an Iraqi National Guard force that would include local residents to keep the peace between US forces and fighters in the town.

But the interim Iraqi government has refused all negotiating points and insisted on the surrender of al-Zarqawi, whom the US has blamed for a string of deadly attacks and beheading of captives in Iraq.

Falluja residents, however, insist that al-Zarqawi is not in their town.

Revenge attack

Meanwhile, an Iraqi political analyst Dr. Leqaa Mekki told Aljazeera that US forces were bent upon attacking Falluja.

The US troops in Iraq would soon launch a full-scale offensive against Falluja to avenge the defeat of its marines in the town last April, he said.

The US would expel any media outlet in Falluja, as the presence of Aljazeera last time proved embarrassing to the US troops, Dr Mekki said. In the absence of Aljazeera and other media outlets it would make it easier for the attacking troops to use maximum force regardless of the collateral damages and civilian casualties, he said.

The analyst said the interim government might be inclined to seek a peaceful resolution of the stalemate in Falluja, which is still not under US control.

The ultimate decision would not be in the hands of the Iraqi interim government but with the US troops, which seemed to be preparing for the full-scale offensive by launching repeated small scale attacks on the town.

The US army would most probably use more troops than it used last April in an effort to remove one of the key symbols of resistance in Iraq, but the fact remains that Falluja is only a small town in Iraq, and its fall can hardly be considered an end to Iraqi resistance, he said.

Aljazeera + Agencies

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