November 24, 2004 -An Iraqi journalist who stayed in Fallujah to report on the battle for his home town says he and hundreds of other civilians who eventually turned themselves in to escape the violence suffered tough, sometimes humiliating, treatment from American and Iraqi guards.

Abdul-Qader Saadi said he was subjected to multiple searches and interrogations; went unfed the first two days; was blindfolded and handcuffed; and had to sleep for days in a wooden cage buffeted by cold winds at a desert detention camp.

Saadi, who has reported part-time for The Associated Press since early in the year, also complained of having to strip naked for a medical examination by doctors he didn't know, a humiliating experience for an Arab.

"This was really painful," he said, several days after his release.

Saadi said he was held for 10 days as US interrogators tried to sort out civilians and insurgents who were detained as troops moved across Fallujah.

US officials confirmed to AP that Saadi was among those screened.

They said 1,450 people had been detained, with more than 400 released after it was determined they weren't combatants.

Before the assault, the US military had warned civilians to leave Fallujah, and most did.

Saadi sent his family to Baghdad three or four days before the offensive began, but although the AP told him he should feel free to join them, he decided to stay.

He said civilians who remained were shocked at the speed of the American advance through the city.

Five days into the battle, Saadi decided to accept a call broadcast by the Iraqi National Guard for civilians to turn themselves in at one of the city's mosques with promises to be taken to safety.

With two tanks surrounding the house where he had taken shelter, he felt he had little choice.

Saadi said he saw a few people, including a woman and child, killed by bullets as they walked toward the mosque.

He and others were taken to a railway station north of Fallujah. Women and children were separated from men, who were kept together in a room so dirty it felt like "an animal barn".

Eventually, about 400 men were crowded into the room. Lines formed for the single toilet. The detainees were given water but no food during their two days at the station, Saadi said.

Saadi said he repeatedly told Iraqi and US soldiers he was a journalist.

After a brief interrogation at the station, his press card and $US100 ($A127) were taken away, he said. He and others were blindfolded and their hands bound with plastic cuffs before they were shoved onto trucks.

After a drive of about two hours, the detainees were dragged out into a chill wind at a camp where barbed wire surrounded wooden cages.

Saadi said he and 19 others were herded into one cage. Each got a thin sponge mattress, but every three had to share a thin, olive-coloured sheet.

The men were fed three meals of US military rations every day and were taken to the toilet three times a day.

Once, Saadi said, he was denied one of his meals and ordered to pick up the rubbish as punishment for laughing.

Others who relieved themselves inside the wooden cage were locked up in a tiny, windowless room, he said.

© 2004 AP