Falluja report

NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov. 22 (Xinhuanet) -- Fierce clashes between US-led forces and defenders of Fallujah renewed Monday Morning as relief teams were struggling to enter the battle-torn central Iraqi city.

[...]

Residents outside the city said the US forces let a relief team to enter the city on Sunday, but later they opened fire at the convoy, killing one member of the team and forcing them to withdrawamid growing fears of human crisis in Fallujah.

Xinhuanet article

The US military says Marines in Fallujah have shot and killed an insurgent who engaged them as he was faking being dead, a week after footage of a marine killing an apparently unarmed and wounded Iraqi caused a stir in the region.

"Marines from the 1st Marine Division shot and killed an insurgent who while faking dead opened fire on the marines who were conducting a security and clearing patrol through the streets," a military statement said.

[...]

Military sources had said that the rules of engagement were looser during the operation launched in Fallujah, for fear that rebels would be disguised, fake death or wear suicide explosives belts.

The US military and Iraqi government troops are still carrying house-to-house searches in the rebel bastion but two weeks after it was launched, the largest post-Saddam military operation in Iraq is all but over.

ABC News article

And related....

In Mosul...

A senior Sunni Muslim cleric has been killed in a drive-by shooting in the northern city of Mosul, medical sources say.

[...]

The cleric was a member of influential Iraqi Muslim body the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), and the brother of the organisation's spokesman in Baghdad, Muhammad Bashar al-Faidhi.

The AMS has called for a boycott of elections planned for 30 January. It says its members have been targeted by US and Iraqi security forces and also by armed fighters trying to fuel sectarian unrest.

[...]

Also in Mosul, four bodies, at least three of them Iraqi soldiers, were found in the past 24 hours by the US military, a US army officer said on Monday.

"We found them at 2300 (2000 GMT on Sunday). They had been dead for at least a couple of hours and their bodies set against the sidewalk, shot in the head and hands tied," Lieutenant Colonel Michael Kurilla said, adding that three of them were confirmed as being Iraqi soldiers.

Aljazeera article

In Tikrit...

Meanwhile, US forces arrested five Iraqi policemen and confiscated their weapons at a checkpoint in Ishaqi district south of Tikrit.

Aljazeera article

In Ramadi...

Insurgents launched a deadly ambush Sunday in the guerrilla stronghold of Ramadi, killing eight Iraqi National Guardsmen and injuring 18 others, police said.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer article

US marines have killed several Iraqi civilians after opening fire at a bus which drove through a checkpoint in the city of Ramadi, the US military and Iraqi police say.

Police said seven died on Saturday while the military said three.

"The driver ignored verbal warning and several warning shots," the military said in a statement.

"As US marines in the vicinity of the checkpoint attempted to disable the van, the van accelerated toward the marines. The marines then fired upon the vehicle to protect themselves and the integrity of the checkpoint."

Aljazeera article

In Samarra...

In Samarra, another mainly Sunni city north of Baghdad, three Iraqis were killed and six others wounded in fierce clashes between fighters and US troops, medical sources said.

Aljazeera article

In Baghdad...

Baghdad has been rocked by daily violence, including car bomb, roadside bomb, rocket and mortar attacks mainly aimed at US or Iraqi military targets but which often kill Iraqi civilians.

Aljazeera article

Two foreigners, at least one of them British, were arrested in Baghdad after a ministerial bodyguard was shot dead, a senior police source has said.

Shooting broke out when an advance party of the interim interior minister's security detail came upon a civilian vehicle whose occupants they felt were behaving suspiciously, the source said.

It is not clear who fired first, but the Iraqi driver of the vehicle and one of minister Falah al-Naqib's guards were killed and another bodyguard wounded.

Aljazeera article