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| Iraq-Jordan |
| US has taken half of Fallujah, Allawi's cousin kidnapped |
| 2004-11-10 |
| U.S.-led troops battled through "half of Falluja" on Wednesday, but Muslim militant kidnappers threatened to behead three relatives of Iraq's interim prime minister if he did not call off the offensive. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's 75-year-old cousin Ghazi Allawi, his wife and their son's wife were seized near their home in Baghdad on Tuesday, an Allawi spokesman said. The previously unknown Ansar al-Jihad group said the hostages would die unless Allawi, "head of the Iraqi agents," halted the Falluja offensive and freed prisoners. "If the agent government does not meet our demands within 48 hours we will behead them," it said in a statement dated Wednesday and posted on an Islamist Web site. "This is yet another criminal act by terrorists and will not thwart the determination of the government to combat terrorism," a brief statement from Allawi's office said. The three were seized a day after Allawi ordered a full-blooded assault by U.S. and Iraqi forces aimed at ridding Falluja of rebels and suspected foreign Islamist fighters to pave the way for nationwide elections planned for January. Air strikes, artillery shelling and mortar fire shook the Sunni Muslim city during intense clashes interspersed with periods of relative calm, a Reuters reporter in Falluja said. The military said U.S. and Iraqi forces had "fought their way through half of the city, including the Jolan District, suspected of being the epicenter of insurgent activity." It said those forces had met light resistance from "small pockets of fighters" on their way through the city. "We've reached the heart of Jolan," Major Clark Watson told Reuters. "It's too early to say we are controlling it ... because there will always be pockets of resistance." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |