Falluja: I Mujahideen conquistano 9 stazioni di polizia, poi si ritirano facendone saltare due. conquistano grossi tratti di autostrada dove formano posti di blocco. intanto il pentagno comunica che71 soldati usa sono morti sino ad adesso a falluja. strano, visto che la battaglia era finita e la città conquistata con "solo" 31 perdite. Gli usa sembrano in difficoltà nello scontro urbano. quando non riescono a bombardare a tappetto sono guai.

Insurgents mount attacks in Fallujah
Tim Johnson, Knight Ridder



Militants hold nine police stations and road checkpoints briefly, destroy two buildings.


Baghdad, December 2, 2004 — A resurgence in armed actions broke out Tuesday in areas west of Fallujah along a key highway leading to Jordan, just weeks after a massive U.S.-led military offensive in the city.

American troops in Iraq ended November with 135 deaths, the biggest toll since April, when fighting flared across north and west Iraq in the "Sunni triangle," a region dominated by supporters of toppled Sunni Muslim dictator Saddam Hussein.

Heavily armed anti-American insurgents on Tuesday took over and briefly held nine police stations and highway checkpoints, blowing up two buildings, police said. Drivers reported that insurgents also took control of large sections of the highway leading west out of Iraq, stopping traffic and shaking down passengers.

"The government will send elements from the National Guard to control the highway since the insurgents are now controlling a large part of it," police Lt. Hameed al Delemi said.

The takeover of police installations came on a day of bombings against U.S. military convoys elsewhere. The worst was in Beiji, an oil-refining town in the north, as a U.S. military convoy went through a bustling area of shops. A car bomb killed seven civilians and wounded at least 15 people. Two of the wounded were American soldiers.

In a simultaneous attack elsewhere in Beiji, 110 miles north of Baghdad, insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. tank, wounding a soldier. Five American soldiers were wounded when a suicide bomber blew up his car along the perilous road from Baghdad to its international airport, destroying an armored military truck.

U.S. forces said an American soldier died late Monday after an explosion hit his patrol north of Baghdad.

The armed actions west of Fallujah came just weeks after some 10,000 American troops stormed the city in the bloodiest urban military campaign for U.S. forces since the Vietnam War.