Updated: 02:39 PM EDT
Americans Missing in Iraq; Supply Lines Attacked
About 70 U.S. Soldiers, 880 Iraqis Killed Since April 1
FALLUJAH, Iraq (April 12) - Gunmen battered American supply lines Monday,
torching armored vehicles and looting a supply truck on its way from the Baghdad
airport. The military said about 70 Americans and hundreds of insurgents had
been killed this month, the bloodiest since the fall of Baghdad a year ago.


AFP/Getty
Mohammed Ahmad Ali walks in a soccer field turned into a cemetery in Fallujah
where around 125 people are buried.


Two U.S. soldiers and seven employees of a U.S. contractor were still missing
after an attack on a convoy west of Baghdad, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said
Monday. A wave of kidnappings continued with the capture of seven Chinese and
two Czech civilians.
The U.S. military said the contractors were working for Kellogg, Brown &
Root, a unit of oil field services company Halliburton Co., the largest contractor
in Iraq. They vanished after an attack on a U.S. convoy in Abu Ghraib, west
of Baghdad. Two U.S. soldiers also disappeared in the incident.
A Reuters photographer saw the aftermath of an attack on a convoy carrying
fuel in Abu Ghraib Friday. He saw at least nine dead bodies, many badly burned.
An American man being held hostage is believed to have been taken captive
after the same attack. Thomas Hamill, whose pictures have been aired on various
television networks, was reported as saying he was the only survivor of the
ambush.
Halliburton said the attack on a transportation convoy came during a "routine
mission" last week for a logistics contract it holds with the U.S. Army. At
any time KBR had more than 700 trucks on Kuwaiti and Iraqi roads, the firm said.
In southern Iraq, the military said it had several cities under control after
recent battles with followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Sanchez said he did not know where al-Sadr was, but he was last known to be
in Najaf.
''The mission of U.S. forces is to kill or capture Muqtada al-Sadr. That is
our mission,'' Sanchez said.
A tenuous cease-fire was holding in Fallujah, but more U.S. forces maneuvered
into place around the city, and commanders said they were not yet ready to
negotiate with the insurgents.
Fallujah, and the military has warned it will launch an all-out assault on
the besieged city if talks there between pro-U.S. Iraqi politicians and city
officials fall through.
The military has been trying to regain control of supply routes after several
convoys were ambushed and at least 10 truck drivers kidnapped. Nine were
released, but an American - Thomas Hamill of Macon, Miss. - remained a captive.
On Monday, a convoy of flatbed trucks carrying M113 armored personnel
carriers was attacked and burned on a road in Latifiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad.
Witnesses said three people were killed.
A supply truck was also ambushed and set ablaze Monday on the road from
Baghdad's airport. Looters moved in to carry away goods from the truck as Iraqi
police looked on without intervening.
An attack on a convoy Sunday killed a Romanian working for a security
company, Romania's ambassador to Iraq said. Two German security guards were killed on
a highway last week, prompting Germany to urge all of its citizens to leave
Iraq on Monday.
Securing roads has now become a top priority for the military, U.S. Brig.
Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Monday.
''Over the past 24 hours we have put significant amount of combat power on
both areas of operation to open up those lines of communication so we can not
only resupply our forces in Fallujah, Ramadi and our forces down south, but also
make those roads safe for travel,'' Kimmit said.
''They're at a condition that we would call amber; it is certainly not green
yet,'' he said.
Three U.S. Marines were killed Sunday in Anbar province, the area that
includes Fallujah, the military said Monday without giving further details. An
attack on an Army patrol in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, killed a soldier
from the 1st Armored Division and injured four others on Sunday.
Kimmitt on Monday released the first full casualty statistics since
widespread fighting erupted on April 4.
''The coalition casualties since April 1 run about 70 personnel. ... The
casualty figures we have received from the enemy are somewhere about 10 times that
amount, what we've inflicted on the enemy,'' he told a Baghdad press
conference.
About 600 Iraqi dead, mostly civilians, were recorded by the main hospital
and four clinics in Fallujah, hospital director Rafie al-Issawi told The
Associated Press.
In all, about 880 Iraqis have been killed, according to an AP count, based on
statements by Iraqi hospital officials, U.S. military statements and Iraqi
police.
President Bush prepared Americans for the possibility of more U.S. casualties.
''It was a tough week last week and my prayers and thoughts are with those
who pay the ultimate price for our security,'' Bush said.
Marines on Sunday investigated a bomb-making factory first uncovered three
days earlier. Along with five suicide belts found in the initial raid, they
uncovered U.S. military uniforms - suggesting suicide bombers may try to get close
to American forces, Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne said.
Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, acknowledged that a battalion of the
Iraqi army refused to fight in Fallujah - a sign of Iraqi discontent with the
siege.
Asked about the battalion's refusal on NBC's ''Meet The Press,'' Sanchez
said, ''This one specific instance did in fact uncover some significant challenges
in some of the Iraqi security force structures ... We know that it's going to
take us a while to stand up reliable forces that can accept responsibility.''
Some 900 members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps are with three battalions
of Marines. U.S. forces on Sunday examined a captured insurgent cache of
suicide belts - raising concerns of a deadly new tactic in the city's fighting.
Bush held out hope for the Fallujah talks, saying the United States was
''open to suggestions'' on reducing the violence.
Meanwhile, a rash of kidnappings continued. Seven Chinese civilians were
abducted by insurgents in central Iraq Sunday evening, China's government said. On
Monday, Beijing urged Iraq's leaders to help free the hostages.
In the last week, militants have kidnapped more than 30 civilians from at
least 12 countries.
Still unknown was the fate of an American hostage, Thomas Hamill, whose
captors threatened to kill him unless the Marines withdraw from Fallujah by early
Sunday. Other insurgents promised to release three Japanese by Sunday, but the
Japanese Embassy in Baghdad said Monday they had not been freed.
In the south, members of the Iraqi Governing Council have reportedly held
talks with followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. His militia raised
a bloody revolt last week and still controls three holy cities, Karbala, Kufa
and Najaf.
One factor that has held off U.S. action to uproot al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army
militia was the presence of up to 1.5 million Shiite pilgrims in Karbala, for
Sunday's al-Arbaeen ceremonies, one of the holiest days of the Shiite religious
calendar. Most pilgrims had left the city by Monday morning.
U.S. coalition spokesman Dan Senor would not comment on Iraqi talks with
al-Sadr's followers but said, ''I would say that our goal is to minimize bloodshed
and to head off any sort of conflict.''
''We don't see it as a necessary requirement that any military action has to
occur in Najaf,'' Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters.
The goal of the separate talks in Fallujah and the south - all conducted by
Iraqis, with no Americans participating - was unclear. U.S. commanders demand
that control of Iraqi police and U.S.-led coalition forces in the cities be
restored and that insurgents in Fallujah lay down their arms and hand over Iraqis
who killed and mutilated four American civilians on March 31.
Iraqi Governing Council members, who have harshly criticized the U.S.
offensive, are seeking a way to extend the truce and resolve the violence.
U.S. troops retook the city of Kut from al-Sadr followers in the past three
days, in the first major foray in months by the American military into southern
Iraq. But military action to retake the other cities could require fighting
near some of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines, raising the possibility of
inflaming Shiite anger at the U.S.-led occupation.
In Fallujah, hardly a shot was heard Monday morning, more than 36 hours after
insurgents in the city said they were calling a cease-fire. The Marines have
halted offensive operations since Friday.
Despite the truce, guerrillas overnight made sporadic attacks, said Byrne.
Marines killed two insurgents setting up a machine gun near a patrol and others
were fired on by gunmen hiding in a school, he said.
The bodies of 11 Iraqis were seen brought to a makeshift clinic in a city
mosque Sunday.
Byrne said U.S. Marines would not withdraw from their positions in Fallujah.
''Diplomacy is just talk unless you have a credible force to back it up,'' he
said. ''People will bend to our will if they are afraid of us.''
Most of the Iraqis killed in Fallujah in fighting that started last Monday
were women, children and elderly, said al-Issawi, the Fallujah hospital director.
Byrne cast doubt on the numbers and said he was confident troops in his 1st
Battalion, 5th Regiment had not killed any civilians.
''Just because (the Iraqis) say it's so, doesn't meant it's so,'' he said.
Fallujah residents took advantage of the lull in fighting to bury their dead
in two soccer fields. One of the fields, seen by an AP reporter had rows of
freshly dug graves, some marked on headstones as children or with the names of
women. A gravedigger at the site said more than 300 people were buried there.
04-12-04 13:57 EDT
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