Fallujah battle gets only an outside media coverage, controlled by the US military so far

Additional Reporting By Abdul Raheem Ali, IOL Staff

FALLUJAH, November 11 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – As the Fallujah battle entered its fourth day running Thursday, November 11, the US military said it lost 18 soldiers, in addition to 5 Iraqi soldiers killed, while other reports put the number of Iraqis killed at 34.

A German medical source, meanwhile, said over 100 US soldiers injured in the ongoing fierce offensive have already made it to hospitals there for treatment.

18 US troops and five Iraqi government soldiers have been killed and 69 US troops and 34 Iraqi troops had been wounded, according to Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commander of the 1st Marine Division, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Al-Jazeera news channel reported Thursday that at least 18 US soldiers and 34 Iraqi national guardsmen were killed and scores injured during the joint onslaught on the west Baghdad city of Fallujah .

Some 10.000 US marines and army forces, alongside some 2.000 Iraqi national guard soldiers unleashed a long expected onslaught on the resistance hub Monday, November 8, capping long nights of massive US raids.

Wounded in Germany

Shedding some light on the true nature of the fierce resistance put up by Iraqi fighters defending the city, medical staff at a US military hospital in southwest Germany said they were expanding bed capacity to care for scores of wounded from the assault on Fallujah, according to The Associated Press.

A planeload with 53 wounded from Iraq arrived Thursday morning and another with 49 more was expected to arrive Thursday evening at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center -- together making an anticipated 102 for the day, spokeswoman Marie Shaw was quoted by AP as saying.

“We are very busy,” Shaw said. “We have seen an increase of patient arrivals since the outbreak of the Fallujah conflict.”

AP added that 64 wounded US soldiers were brought in Wednesday.

“The large number of wounded sent to Germany suggests that fighting may be more intense, at least in some areas, than the military had initially indicated,” AP commented.

Landstuhl has long been a destination for wounded from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan and usually treats between 30 and 50 injured military personnel per day, Shaw told AP.

Lt. Col. Richard Jordan, a physician at the hospital's Deployed Warrior Center which assesses incoming wounded after their six-hour plane trip, told AP the majority of injuries were “significant, but not major.”

“We've had more cases of bullet wounds than usual, though some have also suffered blast wounds from rocket-propelled grenades.”

There were several intensive-care cases involving brain or spinal injuries or traumatic amputation of limbs, he added.

According to AP, citing Jordan , four such patients were brought in Thursday morning on the first plane and four more are expected from the second plane later in the day.

Jordan said the staff was coping well with the heavy workload.

“We have had some people calling and volunteering to come in from other bases to help out.”

He called Thursday “probably one of the busiest days in quite some time” since he began working at the hospital in 2002, according to AP.

“We are on contingency mode, a 60-hour work week.”

Two more planeloads of wounded were expected to arrive Friday.

The hospital was expanding capacity to cope with the additional numbers of patients, Shaw told AP.

“We have expanded our intensive care unit here with about 10 more beds, and we have expanded our medical surgical wards with about 40 more beds.”

The hospital, the largest US military medical facility outside the United States , now has 27 intensive-care beds, including the expansion.

More Than 500 Iraqis killed: US

Some of the US soldiers evacuated to Germany suffered brain or spinal injuries or traumatic amputation of limbs

On the other hand, US military officials Thursday said hundreds of it terms “insurgents”, a reference to Iraqi fighters defending Fallujah, have been killed in battle, while weaker-than-expected resistance has raised questions about what happened to a rebel force estimated at more than 2,000 fighters.

A senior defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP “more than 500 insurgents” have been killed in the fighting to retake the city.

“The Marines are making it look a lot easier than it really is; and that's what professionals do,” General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview with ABC television.

“It has been some hard fighting. And there have been a lot of insurgents -- many, many, insurgents, hundreds and hundred of insurgents who have either been killed or captured in this activity so far,” he said.

Myers sought in a series of television interviews on the US Veterans Day holiday in Washington to stress that the marines’ rapid advance through Fallujah did not mean the city had been abandoned by the rebels before the fight.

“Part of the reason it looks like a ghost town is that the Iraqi government gave instructions to the citizens of Fallujah to stay indoors. And the best we know, there have been hardly any, if any, civilian casualties so far,” he said.

“And as we clear the city, then humanitarian assistance follows right behind to help those citizens of Fallujah who are not insurgents who are left behind,” he said.

Myers account hugely contradicts news reports saying US troops are using chemical weapons and poisonous gas in its large-scale offensive on Fallujah.

US forces had spent weeks before the offensive “shaping” the battleground with air strikes and artillery fire on positions in the city.

Arab Countries Warned

The US Military says it controls two-thirds of Fallujah

Meanwhile, Arab diplomatic sources have revealed Thursday that the US State Department sent a secret message to a number of Arab officials warning against officially criticizing the US massive offensive on Fallujah.

The message also claimed the US offensive on Fallujah serves the Arab interests as it targets the removal of the Jordanian-born Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi’s group from Iraq .

“The US State Department’s secret message sent to a number of Arab officials was to urge them to remarkably lighten the tone of Arab official criticism on the US military operations in Fallujah,” the sources told IOL.

There was almost no official Arab statements denouncing the offensive whether prior to it or after it had already erupted.

According to the sources, Washington also urged the Arab countries to restrict popular criticisms against the US military campaign on the western Iraq city.

The sources, however, declined to name the Arab countries that received the US message.