U.S. Launches Heavy Fire on Fallujah

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. warplanes and helicopters firing heavy machine guns, rockets and cannons hammered insurgents Wednesday in the besieged city of Fallujah, and the commander of U.S. Marines here warned that a fragile truce was near collapse.

With officials reporting four more Marines killed, the death toll of 87 U.S. troops in April made it the deadliest month since the military set foot in Iraq.

In the south, 2,500 U.S. troops were digging in outside the Shiite holy city of Najaf, preparing for a possible assault against radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. An attack on the city would likely outrage Iraq's Shiite majority, a community that -- aside from al-Sadr's militia -- has so far shunned anti-U.S. violence.

Iraqi clerics and politicians have launched negotiations with al-Sadr, trying to get him to back down sufficiently to avert a U.S. attack. But al-Sadr appeared to take a tough stance, demanding U.S. troops withdraw from all Iraqi cities.

A rocket hit the Sheraton Hotel in central Baghdad on Wednesday, breaking windows but causing no casualties in the heavily guarded compound that houses many foreign contractors and journalists. A second rocket failed to go off and was found in the street outside the hotel compound.

A French TV journalist taken hostage as he was videotaping a U.S. military convoy under attack has been freed, his employer, Capa Television, said in Paris. Alexandre Jordanov was kidnapped Sunday amid a wave of recent abductions in which at least 21 foreigners are still being held captive.

U.S. officials and the top U.S contractor in Iraq, Halliburton, were trying to determine whether four bodies found belonged to seven Americans missing since gunmen attacked their convoy outside Baghdad on Friday. One of the seven, Thomas Hamill of Macon, Miss., is known to have been kidnapped and is threatened with death.

U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said the security situation must improve "considerably" before scheduled elections in January.

He said he was confident a caretaker government could be set up to take power from the U.S.-occupation administration by June 30, but warned that elections were "the most important milestone."

U.S. troops were holding back their full firepower on both fronts to allow Iraqis time to negotiate.

President Bush said he was prepared to send more troops and told his commanders to be ready to use "decisive force."

"Our work may become more difficult before it is finished," Bush said Tuesday night. "No one can predict all the hazards that lie ahead or the cost that they will bring. Yet, in this conflict, there is no safe alternative to resolute action."

The fighting has already been difficult. Aside from at least 87 U.S. soldiers, about 880 Iraqis have been killed this month -- including more than 600 Iraqis -- mostly civilians -- in Fallujah, according to the city hospital's director.

The truce in Fallujah was severely shaken by fighting Tuesday and Wednesday morning -- although Marines underlined their halt to offensive operations, called Friday, was still in effect.

"I don't forecast that this stalemate will go on for long," said Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division. "It's hard to have a cease-fire when they maneuver against us, they fire at us. We are trying to maintain the cease-fire, but the enemy is not maintaining the cease-fire."

A U.S. Cobra attack helicopter fired rockets and heavy machine guns before dawn at gunmen gathered on the northern edge of Fallujah. Rocket-propelled grenades streamed up toward the helicopter and a second gunship providing support, but none apparently hit their target.

Early Wednesday, an A-130 gunship pounded a row of buildings from which Marines say ambushes have repeatedly been launched in a residential area.

Gunmen repeatedly attacked one house in Fallujah that the Marines were using. At least 12 gunmen were killed in two nights of attacks.

Many -- but not all -- residents have fled neighborhoods around the Marine positions. Marines have taken over abandoned houses and use sledgehammers to bash through walls and move between houses without exposing themselves to fire.

Marines fought fierce battles Monday and Tuesday with insurgents in Karma, a village outside Fallujah. Some 100 gunmen were killed in battles in palm groves and over canals that were so intense that wounded Marines were sent to rejoin the fight.

"They ran in there with bandages and all," said Col. B.P. McCoy, commander of the 3rd Battalion.

Marines came under two heavy ambushes Tuesday, the best coordinated and largest guerrilla operations in days, said Capt. James Edge. Two Marines were killed Tuesday and two Monday, the military said.

A force of 20 insurgents attacked a Marine position in a residential neighborhood of Fallujah, then damaged an armored vehicle that came to support it, Edge said. A fierce battle followed to extract the vehicle as F-15s overhead fired on gunmen.

Outside the city, an MH-53 Pave Low helicopter was hit by ground fire early Tuesday. A Marine team that came to secure it was ambushed and suffered casualties.

The Marines called a halt to offensive operations Friday to allow negotiations between U.S.-allied Iraqis and Fallujah representatives. Gunmen in the city called a cease-fire Sunday, but Marines have been responding to guerrilla fire -- and striking gunmen who appear about to attack.

Insurgents Wednesday offered the Iraqi equivalent of $7,000 for anyone who kills Mouwafak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi national security adviser, after he called for Fallujah residents to hand over militants to the United States.

In the south, Iraqi politicians and ayatollahs tried to negotiate a solution to avert a U.S. attack on Najaf, home to one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines.

Al-Sadr, was holed up in his office in Najaf, shielded not only by gunmen but by the presence of the city's main shrine only yards away. He vowed to continue what he called "a popular revolution" to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

"I fear only God. I am ready to sacrifice my blood for this country. But I call on the Iraqi people not to let my killing put an end to their rejection of the (U.S.) occupation," al-Sadr told Lebanon's Al-Manar television station.

Al-Sadr pulled his militiamen out of police stations Monday -- a key U.S. demand. But he gave mediators a set of conditions that suggested defiance.

Amer al-Husseini, an aide to al-Sadr, said the conditions are the ceasing of all military operations, U.S. withdrawal from all Iraqi cities and releasing all "innocent detainees."

U.S. commanders vowed to kill or capture al-Sadr, though officials suggested they would give negotiations a chance.

"The target is not Najaf. The target is Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia," said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy head of U.S. military operations in Iraq. "We will hunt him down and destroy him. We would prefer it not in Najaf or Karbala. We have very great respect for the shrines, for the Shiites."

The State Department was in contact with the families of seven U.S civilians missing in Iraq as part of the investigation into the four discovered bodies, spokeswoman Rhonda Shore said Wednesday.

An official in Baghdad with Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root Inc. said the company was working with the Army to investigate whether the bodies were those of any of the seven employees missing since the convoy attack.

The employees and two U.S. soldiers disappeared after the attack, near Abu Ghraib, a district west of Baghdad where gunmen have repeatedly attacked convoys and battled U.S. forces.

An AP tally shows that 21 hostages are being held, including three Japanese whose captors have threatened to kill them if Tokyo does not withdraw its troops from Iraq.

Russia said it will begin evacuating 800 of its citizens and those of former Soviet republics Thursday. The move came after three Russian and five Ukrainian employees of a Russian energy company were kidnapped by masked gunmen Monday but released unharmed the next day.

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.