Congratulations to A.N.S.W.E.R. for initiating a very
successful emergency demonstration last evening, Nov. 9th,
at Powell and Market. What was most inspiring about this
action was, not only had the same unity we had last week, but
we stopped and cheered in solidarity with
Hotel workers who have been locked out of their jobs.

Demonstrators chanted, "Money for Healthcare Not for War!
Support the Hotel Workers," and "What do we want? CONTRACT!
When do we want it? NOW!"

This show of solidarity was inspiring and invigorating!

It is what makes us strong. It is our only hope for peace.

Now we need to come together and coordinate a program
for winning peace. We need to organize all those opposed
to this war; who are for freedom, equality and justice for
all; who want to see a world of opportunity for all instead
of poverty, injustice, tyranny and war to stand together in
solidarity!

We have only just begun to fight!

Peace and solidarity,

Bonnie Weinstein, Bay Area United Against War (BAUAW)

NEXT BAUAW MEETING:

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15TH, 7:00 p.m.
1380 Valencia Street
(Between 24th & 25th Streets, SF)

P.S.

Please send contributions to help offset the
cost of this action to:
A.N.S.W.E.R.
2489 Mission Street, Room 24
San Francisco, CA 94110

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

1) In this message:
· Weekly Local 2 Picket
· Targets of Empire Protest
For more information on the following events,
call the ANSWER Coalition

2) U.S. Takes 'Half Falluja,'
Allawi Cousin Kidnapped
By Michael Georgy and Fadel al-Badrani
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters)
Wed Nov 10, 2004 08:12 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6772224&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

3) 'Scores of civilians' killed in Falluja
Residents say scores of civilians have been killed
Muhammad Abbud said he watched his nine-year-old son bleed
to death at their Falluja home, unable to take him to hospital
as fighting raged in the streets and bombs rained down on the
Iraqi city.
Tuesday 09 November 2004 7:51 PM GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/813419D5-CC95-4505-9367-05140111C618.
htm

4) Massacre in Fallujah: US airplanes bomb hospital, civilians,
fierce fighting reported. US troops forced to retreat from Ramadi
Hospital hit as fighting rages in Falluja
Overnight bombings lasted for more than 10 hours
An Iraqi journalist, Abu Bakr al-Dulaimi, told Aljazeera
that the overnight bombings which continued for more than
10 hours targeted everything in the city including the hospital,
houses as well as cars.
Al-Dulaimi said the hospital's staff, doctors and patients,
have all fallen victim to the assault. He said such fierce
bombings have not been witnessed since the Iran-Iraq war.
http://www.sf-frontlines.com/modules

5) US 'pacifies' city but rebels take violence to rest of country
By Kim Sengupta in Camp Dogwood
10 November 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story

6) The Optimism of Uncertainty
[From an excerpt of Paul Rogat Loeb's book
"The Impossible Will Take a Little While":]
By Howard Zinn
Published on Monday, November 8, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1108-21.htm

7) U.S. TRADE UNIONIST ASSASSINATED IN El SALVADOR
-A Friend of the National Labor Committee
Mr. Gilberto Soto was assassinated Friday evening, November
5, at 6:00 p.m., while visiting

8) CITIZEN'S ASSEMBLY,
Run/Walk and Peace Vigil
Sacred Sites Protection & Rights of Indigenous
Tribes (SSP&RRT)

9) Gonzales to Succeed Ashcroft, Sources Say
By SCOTT LINDLAW
Nov 10, 11:55 AM (ET)
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041110/D8694G201.html
(AP) Attorney General John Ashcroft speaks at a symposium
marking the 10th anniversary of the Violence...

10) 'Watching tragedy engulf my city'
Another one of modern history's real horror shows, but all
indications are that the people who remain are putting up
a very major fight.
Washington Post.com headlined that those resisting were
"Zarqawi supporters" but dropped this particularly gross war
propaganda later.
Fred Feldman

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

1) In this message:
· Weekly Local 2 Picket
· Targets of Empire Protest
For more information on the following events,
call the ANSWER Coalition at
415-821-6545.

----------

EVERY THURSDAY, 4:30-6:30pm
SUPPORT THE LOCAL 2 WORKERS! JOIN ANSWER ON THE PICKET LINE!
Crowne Plaza Hotel, 480 Sutter St. btwn Stockton Powell

Join the ANSWER Coalition on the picket line to support the locked out
Local 2 Hotel Workers in their struggle for health care benefits. For more
information on the other Local 2 picket locations or to donate to the
Solidarity Fund, go to www.unitehere2.org .

----------

Sat. Nov. 13, 12noon
TARGETS OF EMPIRE PROTEST
24th Mission St. at 24th St BART

Stand in solidarity with all the targets of the empire
from disenfranchised youth in U.S. inner cities to Palestinians
resisting Israeli occupation.

Now that we know Bush is staying in the White House for the next four
years, the time is now to continue the fight against wars abroad and
oppression here at home. People will find themselves struggling to get
by because of the actions and inactions of the U.S. government. As
people in Palestine and Iraq are killed by U.S. made and funded bombs
and bullets, the people of Haiti will be kept from having a democratically
elected government, and prevented from trying otherwise. As the U.S.
continues to reap havoc in Afghanistan and threaten countries around
the globe, people here at home will struggle for housing, health care,
education and jobs.

The Justice in Palestine coalition has called this demonstration to call
attention to these "Targets of Empire" and reassert the importance of
the unity between different groups through grassroots struggle. Please
save the date and get out the flyer. (download at
www. justiceinpalestine.net)
We are looking for others to endorse and help build the protest with us.
Please send your endorsements to info@justiceinpalestine.

Sponsored by Justice in Palestine Coalition -
www.justiceinpalestine.net
or email info@justiceinpalestine.net

----------
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to complete the transaction.

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

2) U.S. Takes 'Half Falluja,'
Allawi Cousin Kidnapped
By Michael Georgy and Fadel al-Badrani
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters)
Wed Nov 10, 2004 08:12 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6772224&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - 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."

Helicopters later fired missiles at targets in Jolan before
Marine infantry and Iraqi troops moved back in.

"There are still many snipers in buildings in Jolan," Alaa
Abboud, an Iraqi soldier just back from the area, told Reuters.

AMERICANS SUFFER 11 DEAD

The U.S. military said 11 American troops and two Iraqis
had been killed since 10,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines and
2,000 Iraqi troops launched the offensive on Monday night.

It said the mayor's office had been captured at about
4 a.m. (0100 GMT). Key bridges, civic buildings, mosques and
weapons caches had also been seized in the offensive.

The firepower raining down on Falluja is sure to have
caused civilian casualties, but no clear figures have emerged
since the all-out assault began late on Monday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was
"very worried" about the plight of the wounded in Falluja.

An ICRC spokesman said thousands of civilian fugitives from
Falluja needed water, food, medical care and shelter. Local
people say children have been among those killed.

As the battle for Falluja raged, gunfire and explosions
echoed across the northern city of Mosul, but it was not clear
who was fighting. The U.S. military, which has said rebel
leaders have probably fled Falluja, had no immediate comment.

Gunmen also took to the streets in Baghdad's western
district of Ghazaliya, stopping traffic and blocking a bridge.
Residents said fierce clashes broke out later.

A U.S. Humvee crashed in Baghdad after a sniper shot at the
driver, a Reuters cameraman said. The vehicle rolled on its
side. A U.S. military spokesman said he would check the report.

North of Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier and
wounded another, the military said. A policeman was killed and
two wounded in a similar attack near Samarra, police said.

Rebels with grenade launchers stormed a U.S.-built town
hall in Muatasim south of Samarra and then dynamited it, police said.

Allawi and his U.S. backers say disgruntled supporters of
Saddam's once all-powerful Baath party and militants led by
Jordanian al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi have turned
Falluja into the center of Iraq's bloody insurgency.

But the assault has fueled insecurity among Sunni Arabs,
who make up some 20 percent of Iraq's 25 million people, but
who wielded disproportionate power under Saddam.

The influential Muslim Clerics' Association urged Iraqis to
boycott any elections held "on the remains of the dead and the
blood of the wounded from Iraqi cities like Falluja and others."
(With reporting by Luke Baker, Lin Noueihed, Aladdin
Sa'ad and Waleed Ibrahim in Baghdad, Sabah al-Bazee in Samarra
and Maher al-Thanoon in Mosul)

(c) Copyright Reuters 2004

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

3) 'Scores of civilians' killed in Falluja
Residents say scores of civilians have been killed
Muhammad Abbud said he watched his nine-year-old son bleed
to death at their Falluja home, unable to take him to hospital
as fighting raged in the streets and bombs rained down on the
Iraqi city.
Tuesday 09 November 2004 7:51 PM GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/813419D5-CC95-4505-9367-05140111C618.
htm

In the midst of a US onslaught and hemmed in by a round-the-clock
curfew, he said he had little choice but to bury his eldest son, Ghaith,
in the garden.

"My son got shrapnel in his stomach when our house was hit at dawn,
but we couldn't take him for treatment," said Abbud, a teacher. "We
buried him in the garden because it was too dangerous to go out. We
did not know how long the fighting would last."

Residents say scores of civilians have been killed or wounded in
24 hours of fighting since US-led forces pushed deep into the city
on Monday evening.

Doctors said people brought in at least 15 dead civilians at the main
clinic in Falluja on Monday. By Tuesday, there were no clinics open,
residents said, and no way to count casualties.

Medical supplies low

US and Iraqi forces seized control of the city's main hospital, across
the Euphrates river from Falluja proper, hours before the onslaught
began.

US forces have been steadily
moving deeper into the city
Overnight US bombardments hit a clinic inside the Sunni Muslim city,
killing doctors, nurses and patients, residents said. US military
authorities denied the reports.

Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said troops detained 38 fighters
entrenched at Falluja hospital and accused doctors there of exaggerating
civilian casualties.

Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor at Falluja hospital, said the city was
running out of medical supplies.

"There is not a single surgeon in Falluja. We had one ambulance
hit by US fire and a doctor wounded. There are scores of injured
civilians in their homes who we can't move," he said by telephone
from a house where he had gone to help the wounded.

"A 13-year-old child just died in my hands."

ICRC voices concern

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday
that it was extremely worried about the fate of people wounded
in the battle for control of the Iraqi city of Falluja .



"The ICRC urges the belligerents to ensure that all those in need
of such care - whether friend or foe - be given access to medical
facilities and that medical personnel and vehicles can function
without hindrance at all times," a statement said.



The organisation said it was "deeply concerned about reports that
the injured cannot receive adequate medical care".

Families flee

Weekend air raids destroyed a clinic funded by an Islamic relief
organisation in the centre of Falluja and a nearby warehouse
used to store medical supplies, witnesses said.


Residents say there is no power
and food supplies are running low

Many families fled the city of 300,000 long before the offensive
began. An official from a Sunni Muslim group with links to some
fighters in Falluja said on Monday only about 60,000 people remained.

lamps at night. They say they keep to ground floors for safety.
Food shops have been closed for six days.

"My kids are hysterical with fear," said Farhan Salih. "They are
traumatised by the sound but there is nowhere to take them."

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday he did not
foresee large numbers of civilian casualties in the assault, saying
US forces were disciplined and precise.

Those words were of little comfort to the Abbud family, sitting in
a house damaged by the bomb that killed their child.

"We just bandaged his stomach and gave him water, but he
was losing a lot of blood. He died this afternoon," said Abbud.

You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/813419D5-CC95-4505-9367-05140111C618.
htm

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

4) Massacre in Fallujah: US airplanes bomb hospital, civilians,
fierce fighting reported. US troops forced to retreat from Ramadi
Hospital hit as fighting rages in Falluja
Overnight bombings lasted for more than 10 hours
An Iraqi journalist, Abu Bakr al-Dulaimi, told Aljazeera
that the overnight bombings which continued for more than
10 hours targeted everything in the city including the hospital,
houses as well as cars.
Al-Dulaimi said the hospital's staff, doctors and patients,
have all fallen victim to the assault. He said such fierce
bombings have not been witnessed since the Iran-Iraq war.
http://www.sf-frontlines.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&s
id=862&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- Warplanes have bombed a government clinic in
the centre of Falluja as US ground forces engaged in pitched battles
with fighters defending the city.

Residents said the one-story Popular Clinic which had been receiving
wounded anti-US fighters and civilians was hit overnight as US-led
forces pressed into the city.

The residents said on Tuesday it was impossible to reach the clinic
because of heavy bombing and US tanks in the area.

The clinic's telephones were no longer working.

An Iraqi journalist, Abu Bakr al-Dulaimi, told Aljazeera that the
overnight bombings which continued for more than 10 hours
targeted everything in the city including the hospital, houses as
well as cars.

Al-Dulaimi said the hospital's staff, doctors and patients, have
all fallen victim to the assault. He said such fierce bombings have
not been witnessed since the Iran-Iraq war.

The US military said it had no immediate information on any attack
on the clinic.

Fierce fighting

Fierce clashes erupted between American troops and anti-US
fighters in the neighbourhoods of al-Askari, al-Jughaivi and
al-Dhubat near the northern gate of the city, Aljazeera learned.

Residents said smoke was rising from the whole city as it shook
to constant explosions. Civilians were huddled in their homes
and there was no word on casualties.

A US tank company commander in Iraq said on Tuesday that
guerrillas were putting up a strong fight in the Jolan district of
north-west Falluja, which is a rebel stronghold.

"These people are hardcore. They are putting up a strong fight
and I saw many of them on the street I was on," Captain Robert
Bodisch told Reuters.

"A man pulled out from behind a wall and fired an RPG at my
tank. I have to get another tank to go back in there," he said
without giving details.

The agency also reported that a US helicopter had been shot
down.

"I saw the helicopter collide with a rocket. It turned into a ball
of fire and fell to the ground," said Reuters reporter Fadl
al-Badrani. "There was smoke everywhere."

He said the helicopter crashed in the city's Jolan district.
A US military spokesman, however, had denied the report.

An AFP reporter in Jolan said one building in every 10 had
been flattened. As US-led troops closed in on the neighbourhood
overnight, at least four 2,000-pound (900-kilogramme) bombs
were dropped in the city's northwest.
Muhammad Abbud said he watched his nine-year-old son bleed
to death at their Falluja home, unable to take him to hospital as
fighting raged in the streets and bombs rained down on the
Iraqi city.

At least 50 guerrilla fighters and 20 US soldiers were killed in
the first hours of street fighting with scores more wounded.

Many civilians killed

Muhammad Abbud said he watched his nine-year-old son bleed
to death at their Falluja home, unable to take him to hospital as
fighting raged in the streets and bombs rained down on the Iraqi city.

In the midst of the US onslaught and hemmed in by a round-
the-clock curfew, he said he had little choice but to bury his
eldest son, Ghaith, in the garden.

"My son got shrapnel in his stomach when our house was hit at
dawn, but we couldn't take him for treatment," said Abbud,
a teacher. "We buried him in the garden because it was too
dangerous to go out. We did not know how long the fighting
would last."

Residents say scores of civilians have been killed or wounded in
24 hours of fighting since US-led forces pushed deep into the city
on Monday evening.

Doctors said people brought in at least 15 dead civilians at the main
clinic in Falluja on Monday. By Tuesday, there were no clinics open,
residents said, and no way to count casualties.

Scores injured

US and Iraqi forces seized Falluja's main hospital, across the
Euphrates river from the city centre, on Monday night hours
before the main offensive got under way.

Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor at the hospital, who escaped arrest when
it was taken, said the city was running out of medical supplies and
only a few clinics remained open.

"There is not a single surgeon in Falluja. We had one ambulance hit
by US fire and a doctor wounded. There are scores of injured civilians
in their homes whom we can't move."

"A 13-year-old child just died in my hands," he told reporters by
telephone from a house where he had gone to help the wounded.

Doctors said at least 15 civilians had been killed in Monday's fighting.
There was no word on US casualties.

Cleansing operation

Iraq's US-backed interim government sees Falluja and its sister city
of Ramadi as havens for anti-US fighters that must be retaken to
allow nationwide elections to go ahead in January.

"We are determined to clean Falluja from the terrorists," interim
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on Monday in Baghdad.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell echoed the theme.

"We have begun an operation in Falluja today to ... defeat this
hornet's nest of insurgent activity and terrorist activity," he told
reporters on his way to Mexico City.

Allawi declared a 60-day emergency rule from Sunday to help
crush the "insurgency" and pave the way for elections. On Monday
he used those powers to impose a curfew on Falluja and Ramadi,
and effectively seal the borders with Jordan and Syria.

Islamic Party quits

The political cost of the operation is already beginning to mount.

A major Sunni political party has quit the interim US-backed Iraqi
government and revoked its single minister from the cabinet in
protest over the US in Falluja, the party's leader said on Tuesday.

"We are protesting the attack on Falluja and the injustice that is
inflicted on the innocent people of the city. We cannot be part of
this attack"

"We are protesting the attack on Falluja and the injustice that is
inflicted on the innocent people of the city," said Muhsin Abd
al-Hamid, head of the Iraqi Islamic Party.

Abd al-Hamid said the party leaders convened on Monday and
decided that their one minister in the cabinet - Minister of Industry,
Hashim al-Hasani - should quit.

"We cannot be part of this attack," the leader said.

In a statement to Aljazeera, the Islamic Party in Iraq accused the
US-backed interim Iraqi government of allowing the killing of Iraqis.

The party called for the immediate halt to all bloodshed.

Condemnation

Another Sunni grouping, the Association of Muslim Scholars
(AMS) urged the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Arab
League secretary-general and "all those who live with a conscience
around the world" to be aware of the "massacres and elimination
war" in Falluja.

Dr Harith al-Dhari, secretary-general of the AMS, said the "Iraqi
resistance" was a legitimate right.

"The resistance has been legitimate since its first days. We only
need to reconfirm this in order to expel the confusion caused by
some external fatwas [Islamic decrees] prohibiting jihad."

Al-Dhari added: "Iraqis are in jihad as they have the right to
defend themselves. This right is approved by all laws and heavenly
religions.

"We have said we support the resistance since the occupation of
this country began. This is our right as Iraqis. Therefore, we don't
need a fatwa on this issue as this matter is clear," he added.

"This is a jihad of defence that needs no consultation or fatwas
to be issued."

Ramadi fighting: US forces retreat

In a separate development, anti-US fighters took control of the
centre of the Iraqi city of Ramadi after 24 hours of clashes with
US forces, an AFP correspondent has said.

The US military could not immediately be contacted for comment.

US forces withdrew Tuesday around 2:00pm (1100 GMT) from
Ramadi's main streets to their bases east and west of the city,
the correspondent said.

Earlier, five US troops were wounded in Ramadi when marines
shot at and destroyed two suspected cars killing seven fighters,
the US military said Tuesday.

The attack occured in the city on Monday, located 113km west
of Baghdad, where US troops have clashed with fighters for weeks,
the military said. No other details were available.

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---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

5) US 'pacifies' city but rebels take violence to rest of country
By Kim Sengupta in Camp Dogwood
10 November 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=581298

US 'pacifies' city but rebels take violence to rest of country

Old errors meant assault became inevitable

Fijian soldier serving as sniper with Black Watch is fifth victim

No more UK forces to be sent to 'Triangle of Death' when troops
go home next month

Johann Hari: How do you defend the destruction of Fallujah to the
people who live there?

Leading article: Mr Bush can afford to spend a little of his political
capital helping out Mr Blair

US forces reached the centre of Fallujah yesterday after hours of
street fighting and barrages from artillery, tank and helicopter
gunships. As night fell, the Americans announced that they had
captured key strategic targets and were carrying out house-to-
house searches.

The Pentagon said that at least 10 US and two Iraqi soldiers had
died since the offensive began on Monday night. Reports of insurgents'
deaths vary between 12 and 42. Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi interim Prime
Minister, claimed that troops had detained 38 insurgents entrenched
at the hospital.

Even as US commanders were declaring that the rebel stronghold
would be "pacified" very soon, the price being paid for the victory
was becoming evident in the carnage being visited around the country.
It appears that many of the insurgents who had been based in Fallujah
slipped out of the city and moved to other parts of Iraq before the
offensive.

The estimates given by the US military about the numbers of
insurgents in Fallujah have varied. Two weeks ago it was claimed
there were 6,000 heavily armed militants, including the Jordanian
terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in the city. However, small groups
of fighters, sometimes no more than 20 strong, have attempted to
engage the Americans, who vastly outnumber and outgun them,
before fading away.

The explanation of what had happened to those missing fighters
could be found, perhaps, in what happened elsewhere in Iraq
yesterday.

Hundreds of armed men entered Ramadi, taking over government
buildings, while in Baquba, north of Baghdad, 45 people, including
25 policemen were killed in a series of attacks. Eleven people died
in bombings in Baghdad, and an attack on a National Guard
headquarters in Kirkuk killed three people.

There was also political unravelling, with one of the main Sunni
groups, the Iraqi Islamic Party, resigning from the Iraqi government
in protest at the assault. "The American attack on our people in
Fallujah has led and will lead to more killings and genocide without
mercy from the Americans," said its leader, Mohsen Abdel Hamid.
The Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential group of Sunni
clerics, called for a boycott of next January's planned elections which
were, it said, being held "over the corpses of those killed in Fallujah
and the blood of the wounded".

There were reports from Fallujah that almost 500 Iraqi government
troops _ almost a battalion _ had refused to fight alongside the
Americans, a repetition of similar incidents when US forces attacked
the city last April. In Washington, Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence
Secretary, said: "I would characterise it as an isolated problem."

The government imposed an indefinite night-time curfew in
Baghdad. Officials said there was "credible evidence" that militants
escaping from Fallujah had regrouped in the capital and were
planning more attacks.

Colonel Michael Formica, the commander of the 1st Cavalry Brigade,
said in Fallujah that escaping fighters were a real problem. "My
concern now is only one _ not to allow any enemy to escape. As
we tighten the noose around him, he will move to escape to fight
another day. I do not want these guys to get out of here. I want
them killed or captured as they flee".

Intermittent fighting was under way in the northern sectors of
Fallujah, with at least two American tanks reported to be engulfed
in flames. Despite meeting fierce and, at times, sustained resistance,
senior officers of the army's Task Force, of the 1st Infantry Division,
said they had not encountered any of the more than 120 "suicide cars"
supposedly waiting for them packed with explosives. However, other
units reported that they had found booby-trapped buildings.

By midday, US armored units, attacking from the north, had made their
way to the highway running from east to west through the city centre
and crossed over into the southern part of the city. One of the objectives
surrounded by US forces was the al-Hidra mosque half a mile inside the city.
According to the American commanders, the mosque was being used
as a weapons dump and planning centre for militants, and will be
captured in due course with Iraqi government troops leading the way.

US troops are using Fallujah's main railway station as a forward base
and detention centre. Iraqi government troops brought in nine
handcuffed prisoners from the Jolan area, where many of the
militants are said to have gathered. They said two were Egyptians
and one was Syrian.

Captain Robert Bodisch, a Marines tank company commander,
said: "They are putting up a strong fight ... these people are
hardcore ... A man pulled out from behind a wall and fired an
RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] at my tank. I have to get another
tank to go back in there."

Local people claimed US warplanes bombed a clinic, causing
many casualties. The main hospital was captured by US and
Iraqi government forces on Monday, when, according to
government figures, more than 40 "terrorists" were killed.

Also in Middle East
US 'pacifies' city but rebels take violence to rest of country
Old errors meant assault became inevitable
Fijian soldier serving as sniper with Black Watch is fifth victim
Arafat's fate depends on 'will of God', say Palestinian leaders
as his coma deepens
Leader's wife hit by PLO slur campaign
(c) 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

6) The Optimism of Uncertainty
[From an excerpt of Paul Rogat Loeb's book
"The Impossible Will Take a Little While":]
By Howard Zinn
Published on Monday, November 8, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1108-21.htm


In this awful world where the efforts of caring people often pale in
comparison to what is done by those who have power, how do I manage
to stay involved and seemingly happy? I am totally confident not that
the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game
before all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate;
life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning.

To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the
world. There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present
moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by
the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in
people's thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against
tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed
invincible. What leaps out from the history of the past hundred years
is its utter unpredictability. This confounds us, because we are
talking about exactly the period when human beings became so
ingenious technologically that they could plan and predict the exact
time of someone landing on the moon, or walk down the street talking
to someone halfway around the earth.

Let's go back a hundred years. A revolution to overthrow the tsar of
Russia, in that most sluggish of semi-feudal empires, not only
startled the most advanced imperial powers, but took Lenin himself by
surprise and sent him rushing by train to Petrograd. Given the
Russian Revolution, who could have predicted Stalin's deformation of
it, or Khrushchev's astounding exposure of Stalin, or Gorbachev's
succession of surprises? Who would have predicted the bizarre shifts
of World War II-the Nazi-Soviet pact (those embarrassing photos of
von Ribbentrop and Molotov shaking hands), and the German army
rolling through Russia, apparently invincible, causing colossal
casualties, being turned back at the gates of Leningrad, on the
western edge of Moscow, in the streets of Stalingrad, followed by the
defeat of the German army, with Hitler huddled in his Berlin bunker,
waiting to die?

And then the post-war world, taking a shape no one could have drawn
in advance: The Chinese Communist revolution, which Stalin himself
had given little chance. And then the break with the Soviet Union,
the tumultuous and violent Cultural Revolution, and then another
turnabout, with post-Mao China renouncing its most fervently held
ideas and institutions, making overtures to the West, cuddling up to
capitalist enterprise, perplexing everyone. No one foresaw the
disintegration of the old Western empires happening so quickly after
the war, or the odd array of societies that would be created in the
newly independent nations, from the benign village socialism of
Nyerere's Tanzania to the madness of Idi Amin's adjacent Uganda.

Spain became an astonishment. A million died in the civil war, which
ended in victory for the Fascist Franco, backed by Hitler and
Mussolini. I recall a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade telling
me that he could not imagine Spanish Fascism being overthrown without
another bloody war. But after Franco was gone, a parliamentary
democracy came into being, open to Socialists, Communists,
anarchists, everyone. In other places too, deeply entrenched
dictatorships seemed suddenly to disintegrate-in Portugal, Argentina,
the Philippines, Iran.

The end of World War II left two superpowers with their respective
spheres of influence and control, vying for military and political
power. The United States and the Soviet Union soon each had enough
thermonuclear bombs to devastate the Earth several times over. The
international scene was dominated by their rivalry, and it was
supposed that all affairs, in every nation, were affected by their
looming presence. Yet the most striking fact about these superpowers
was that, despite their size, their wealth, their overwhelming
accumulation of nuclear weapons, they were unable to control events,
even in those parts of the world considered to be their respective
spheres of influence. The failure of the Soviet Union to have its way
in Afghanistan, its decision to withdraw after almost a decade of
ugly intervention, was the most striking evidence that even the
possession of thermonuclear weapons does not guarantee domination
over a determined population.

The United States has faced the same reality. It waged a full-scale
war in lndochina, conducted the most brutal bombardment of a tiny
peninsula in world history, and yet was forced to withdraw. In Latin
America, after a long history of U.S. military intervention having
its way again and again, this superpower, with all its wealth and
weapons, found itself frustrated. It was unable to prevent a
revolution in Cuba, and the Latin American dictatorships that the
United States supported from Chile to Argentina to El Salvador have
fallen. In the headlines every day we see other instances of the
failure of the presumably powerful over the presumably powerless, as
in Brazil, where a grassroots movement of workers and the poor
elected a new president pledged to fight destructive corporate power.

Looking at this catalog of huge surprises, it's clear that the
struggle for justice should never be abandoned because of the
apparent overwhelming power of those who have the guns and the money
and who seem invincible in their determination to hold on to it. That
apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human
qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor,
determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity,
courage, patience-whether by blacks in Alabama and South Africa,
peasants in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Vietnam, or workers and
intellectuals in Poland, Hungary, and the Soviet Union itself.

No cold calculation of the balance of power need deter people who are
persuaded that their cause is just. I have tried hard to match my
friends in their pessimism about the world (is it just my friends?),
but I keep encountering people who, in spite of all the evidence of
terrible things happening everywhere, give me hope. Especially young
people, in whom the future rests. Wherever I go, I find such people.
And beyond the handful of activists there seem to be hundreds,
thousands more who are open to unorthodox ideas. But they tend not to
know of each other's existence, and so, while they persist, they do
so with the desperate patience of Sisyphus endlessly pushing that
boulder up the mountain.

I try to tell each group that it is not alone, and that the very
people who are disheartened by the absence of a national movement are
themselves proof of the potential for such a movement. It is this
change in consciousness that encourages me. Granted, racial hatred
and sex discrimination are still with us, war and violence still
poison our culture, we have a large underclass of poor, desperate
people, and there is a hard core of the population content with the
way things are, afraid of change. But if we see only that, we have
lost historical perspective, and then it is as if we were born
yesterday and we know only the depressing stories in this morning's
newspapers, this evening's television reports.

Consider the remarkable transformation, in just a few decades, in
people's consciousness of racism, in the bold presence of women
demanding their rightful place, in a growing public awareness that
gays are not curiosities but sensate human beings, in the long-term
growing skepticism about military intervention despite brief surges
of military madness. It is that long-term change that I think we must
see if we are not to lose hope. Pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy; it reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act.
Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware
of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving
zigzag toward a more decent society.

We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in
the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of
people, can transform the world. Even when we don't "win," there is
fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with
other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope. An optimist
isn't necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of
our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic.
It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of
cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What
we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our
lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do
something. If we remember those times and places-and there are so
many-where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the
energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning
top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however
small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The
future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we
think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around
us, is itself a marvelous victory.

--

Adapted from "The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's
Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear", edited by Paul Rogat Loeb. Parts of
this essay appeared in You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train and
Howard Zinn on History.

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

7) U.S. TRADE UNIONIST ASSASSINATED IN El SALVADOR
-A Friend of the National Labor Committee
Mr. Gilberto Soto was assassinated Friday evening, November
5, at 6:00 p.m., while visiting his mother in the city of
Usulutan, El Salvador.

Mr. Soto received a call on his cell phone and had just
stepped outside the doorway of his mother's home, searching
for better reception, when he was approached by two men who
shot and killed him at close range. He was shot in the upper
back and on the lower side, near the kidney. It was this
shot which severed his aorta, the major artery to the heart.
He died immediately.
The killers fled, running to a car waiting about 100 yards
away. There may also have been a third assailant on a bike.
There was absolutely no attempt to rob Mr. Soto. It was
clear that the sole intent was to kill him. There were
several eye witnesses.
Mr. Gilberto Soto was a long time organizer with the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). Based in New
Jersey, he was in charge of organizing port container
drivers in the northeast of the U.S. He was currently
involved in organizing drivers in Elizabeth, N.J.
Less than a year ago, Mr. Soto met in New York City with
Denmark's SID Union (The Specialized Workers Union in
Denmark) Central American Representative, Bjarne Larsen. The
IBT and SID were interested in collaborating on a joint
project documenting the systematic violations of worker
rights by Maersk, one of the largest shipping companies in
the world.
Mr. Soto was just about to begin his organizing work in
Central America when he was assassinated. He was going to
meet with port workers in El Salvador, Honduras and
Nicaragua. However, his real interest was to meet with and
assist the drivers who hauled Maersk containers. In El
Salvador, the working conditions are horrible, with
excessive shifts and low wages. The drivers have absolutely
no right to organize, and any hint of workers trying to
exercise their legal right to Freedom of Association would
be met with mass firings. The drivers are paid for only the
hours they are on the road. A trip from a free trade zone in
El Salvador to Puerto Cortez in Honduras could take seven-
to-nine hours. Then there would be all the down time for
which they are not paid, followed by another long haul back
to El Salvador.
In Honduras, about 700 of the container drivers are
organized, and a much smaller group was just newly organized
in Nicaragua.
Weeks had gone into preparing for Mr. Soto's trip. Many
emails had gone back and forth, and many drivers had been
approached and spoken with. It is possible that word leaked
out.
Mr. Gilberto Soto's family in El Salvador will not be
frightened. They are calling for a full investigation.
Mr. Soto's sister told us: "We need an investigation. This
murder did not just happen. There is something behind this.
We demand justice in this country (El Salvador), where there
is so little justice."
Mr Gilberto Soto would have been 50 years old on Saturday,
November 6, the day after he was assassinated. He leaves
behind a 25 year old son. His mother and sister are
accompanying his body from El Salvador to the U.S. this
Thursday.
Mr. Soto was born in El Salvador and immigrated to the U.S.
in 1975. His family says that Gilberto had no enemies in
Usulatan. It was quite the opposite, he was loved and
respected.
Starting in the mid 1980's, Mr. Gilberto Soto was a long
term collaborator with the National Labor Committee,
participating in several of our campaigns. While we were on
the road for the last five weeks with a tour of young
Bangladesh workers, Gilberto called us. He asked us to help
the exploited containers drivers in El Salvador, and we said
we would. We were to speak later this week.
More than ever, the NLC intends to go ahead with that
solidarity, and we ask your help.
If they can assassinate a U.S. citizen and trade union
leader in El Salvador, we can only imagine the repression
the Salvadoran workers are facing on a daily basis. This is
another tragic example of how CAFTA (Central American Free
Trade Agreement) will continue to fail the workers in
Central America and the U.S. While CAFTA goes out of its way
to provide all sorts legal protection to the product, there
are no similar enforceable laws backed up by sanctions to
defend the rights of the human being and workers who made
the product.
We need to continue the struggle for worker rights
protections in Central America and in the U.S. But first we
need an immediate and thorough investigation to get to the
truth of why and who killed Mr. Soto. As a first step,
please write to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell
demanding a full investigation. (A model letter is
attached).
Please visit the NLC website (www.nlcnet.org) for updates.
MODEL LETTER:
DATE
General Colin L. Powell, Secretary of State
Department of State
2201 C St., NW
Washington, DC 20520
Fax: 202-647-2283
Dear Secretary Powell:
A United States Citizen and trade union leader, Mr. Gilberto
Soto, was assassinated in Usulutan, El Salvador on Friday
evening, November 5. Two men who shot Mr. Soto in the back,
at close range, before fleeing to a waiting car. There was
absolutely no attempt to rob Mr. Soto, and according to eye
witness accounts, it was clear that the sole intent was to
kill him.
Mr. Soto, who was born in El Salvador, was a longtime union
organizer with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
in charge of working with port drivers on the northeast
coast of the United States. Mr. Soto was in Central America
to meet with port workers and the drivers who haul
containers for the Maersk shipping line and other companies
in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. I strongly believe
that Mr. Soto was assassinated to prevent his meeting with
and providing solidarity to these exploited port drivers.
The container drivers in El Salvador work under very abusive
conditions, forced to work excessively long shifts for
little pay. The Salvadoran drivers are also systematically
denied their legal right to freedom of association.
Everyone knows that any attempt to organize would be met
with mass firings.
I urge you to intervene with the President of El Salvador to
demand an immediate and thorough investigation of why Mr.
Gilberto Soto was killed, and by whom. I also request that
sufficient U.S. resources and personnel be made available to
monitor this investigation. Certainly out of respect for
Mr. Soto, there should also be an investigation into the
systematic violation of labor rights faced by El Salvador's
port workers--especially in light of the pending Central
America Free Trade Agreement. If a U.S. citizen and union
leader can be assassinated in El Salvador, one can only
imagine the repression and threats the Salvadoran workers
must face on a daily basis.
Thank you for your efforts to see that genuine justice is
done for Mr. Soto and his family, and for all decent
Americans who value respect for fundamental human and
workers' rights.
Sincerely,
CC: Elías Antonio Saca González, President of the Republic
of El Salvador

********************************************************
This is a message from the National Labor Committee.
If you have received this update from a friend,
please visit http://www.nlcnet.org/listserv.asp
to be added to the list.
--
National Labor Committee
540 West 48th Street, 3rd Fl.
New York, NY 10036
phone: (212) 242-3002
fax: (212) 242-3821
www.nlcnet.org
--
Dan Calamuci
U.S. Campaigns Coordinator
National Labor Committee
540 W 48th St. 3rd FL.
New York, NY 10036
ph: (212) 242-3002
fax: (212) 242-3821
email: dcalamuci@nlcnet.org
www.nlcnet.org

ActionLA
Action for World Liberation Everyday!
Tel: (213)403-0131
URL: http://www.ActionLA.org
e-mail: Info@ActionLA.org
Please join our ActionLA Listserv
go to: http://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/actionla
or send e-mail to: actionla-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

8) CITIZEN'S ASSEMBLY,
Run/Walk and Peace Vigil
Sacred Sites Protection & Rights of Indigenous
Tribes (SSP&RRT)
Invites all: Nations, Tribes, Bands, Family Clans,
Faith Based Organizations and Peace & Justice Organizations
and concerned citizens to join us in a run/walk and peace vigil
for the preservation of sacred sites.
Saturday, November 27, 2004
12:00 Noon -- meet at Waterfront Park
495 Mare Island Parkway, Vallejo (next to Ferry Terminal)
and board shuttle buses to start line.
12:30 PM -- Special Ceremony at Glen Cove Site
1:00 -- Begin SSP&RRT run/walk to Waterfront Park

A Citizen's Assembly will be held at the finish (Waterfront Park)

A potluck lunch will follow Citizen's Assembly at
Native American Studies
301 Wallace Avenue, Vallejo

contact info: (707) 557-2140 (volunteers)
all other info: (707) 557-2140 or (707) 552- 2562




Published on Sunday, November 7,
2004 by Agence France Presse Holy War:
Evangelical Marines Prepare to Battle Barbarians


NEAR FALLUJAH - With US forces
massing outside Fallujah, 35 marines
swayed to Christian rock music and
asked Jesus Christ to protect them in
what could be the biggest battle since
American troops invaded Iraq last
year.

US Marines of the 1st Division
dressed as gladiators stage a chariot
race reminiscent of the Charlton
Heston movie-complete with confiscated
Iraqi horses at their base outside
Fallujah, Iraq, Saturday, Nov. 6 ,
2004. For U.S. Marines tapped to
lead an expected attack on
insurgent-held Fallujah, the bags
have been packed, trucks have been
loaded and final letters have been
sent, leaving one final task - the
'Ben-Hur.' (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

The marines drew parallels from
the verse with their present situation,
where they perceive themselves
as warriors fighting barbaric men opposed
to all that is good in the world.

Men with buzzcuts and clad in their
camouflage waved their hands in the
air, M-16 assault rifles beside them,
and chanted heavy metal-flavoured
lyrics in praise of Christ late on
Friday in a yellow-brick chapel.

They counted among thousands
of troops surrounding the city of Fallujah,
seeking solace as they awaited
Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's
decision on whether or not to invade Fallujah.

"You are the sovereign. You're
name is holy. You are the pure spotless
lamb," a female voice cried out
on the loudspeakers as the marines
clapped their hands and closed
their eyes, reflecting on what lay ahead
for them.

The US military, with many
soldiers coming from the conservative
American south and midwest,
has deep Christian roots.

Comforting

In times that fighting looms,
many soldiers draw on their evangelical or
born-again heritage to help them face the battle.

"It's always comforting. Church
attendance is always up before the big
push," said first sergeant Miles Thatford.

"Sometimes, all you've got is God."

Between the service's electric guitar
religious tunes, marines stepped
up on the chapel's small stage and
recited a verse of scripture, meant
to fortify them for war.

One spoke of their Old Testament
hero, a shepherd who would become
Israel's king, battling the Philistines ,
3 000 years ago.

"Thus David prevailed over the
Philistines," the marine said, reading
from scripture, and the marines
shouted back "Hoorah, King David," using
their signature grunt of approval.

The marines drew parallels from the
verse with their present situation,
where they perceive themselves as
warriors fighting barbaric men opposed
to all that is good in the world.

"Victory belongs to the Lord," another
young marine read.

Their chaplain, named Horne, told
the worshippers they were stationed
outside Fallujah to bring the Iraqis
"freedom from oppression, rape,
torture and murder ... We ask you
God to bless us in that effort."

Holy oil

The marines then lined up and their
chaplain blessed them with holy oil
to protect them.

"God's people would be anointed
with oil," the chaplain said, as he
lightly dabbed oil on the marines'
foreheads.

The crowd then followed him outside
their small auditorium for a baptism
of about a half-dozen marines who
had just found Christ.

The young men lined up and at least
three of them stripped down to their
shorts.

The three laid down in a rubber
dinghy filled with water and the
chaplain's assistant, navy corpsman
Richard Vaughn, plunged their heads
beneath the surface.

Smiling, Vaughn baptised them
"in the name of the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit."

Dripping wet, corporal Keith
Arguelles beamed after his baptism.

"I just wanted to make sure
I did this before I headed into the fight,"
he said on the military base not far from the city of Fallujah.

(c) Copyright 2004 AFP

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

9) Gonzales to Succeed Ashcroft, Sources Say
By SCOTT LINDLAW
Nov 10, 11:55 AM (ET)
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041110/D8694G201.html
(AP) Attorney General John Ashcroft speaks at a symposium
marking the 10th anniversary of the Violence...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush has chosen White House counsel
Alberto Gonzales, a Texas confidant and one of the most prominent
Hispanics in the administration, to succeed Attorney General John
Ashcroft, sources close to the White House said Wednesday.

Ashcroft announced his resignation on Tuesday, along with
Commerce Secretary Don Evans, a Texas friend of the president's.

After a National Security Council meeting, Bush was sitting down
Wednesday with Secretary of State Colin Powell, another figure
being closely watched for signs of whether he will stay or go.
Powell has been largely noncommital when asked about his plans.

Gonzales, 49, has long been rumored as a leading candidate
for a Supreme Court vacancy if one develops. Speculation
increased after Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist announced
he has thyroid cancer.

Gonzales' career has been linked with Bush for at least a decade,
serving as general counsel when Bush was governor of Texas,
and then as secretary of state and as a justice on the Texas
Supreme Court.

Gonzales has been at the center of developing Bush's
positions on balancing civil liberties with waging the war
on terrorism - opening the White House counsel to the same
line of criticism that has dogged Ashcroft.

For instance, Gonzales publicly defended the administration's
policy - essentially repudiated by the Supreme Court and now
being fought out in the lower courts - of detaining certain
terrorism suspects for extended periods without access to
lawyers or courts.

He also wrote a controversial February 2002 memo in which
Bush claimed the right to waive anti-torture law and international
treaties providing protections to prisoners of war. That position
drew fire from human rights groups, which said it helped led to
the type of abuses uncovered in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

Some conservatives also have quietly questioned Gonzales'
credentials on core social issues. And he once was a partner
in a Houston law firm which represented the scandal-ridden
energy giant Enron.

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

10) 'Watching tragedy engulf my city'
Another one of modern history's real horror shows, but all
indications are that the people who remain are putting up
a very major fight.
Washington Post.com headlined that those resisting were
"Zarqawi supporters" but dropped this particularly gross war
propaganda later.
Fred Feldman


'Watching tragedy engulf my city'

US and Iraqi forces are locked in desperate street battles against
insurgents in the Iraqi city of Falluja. The BBC News website spoke by
phone to Fadhil Badrani, a journalist in Falluja who reports for the BBC
World Service in Arabic.

Translation from Arabic by Jumbe Omari Jumbe of bbcarabic.com

11/09/04 "BBC" -- I am surrounded by thick black smoke and the smell of
burning oil. There was a big explosion a few minutes ago and now I can
hear gunfire.

A US armoured vehicle has been parked on the street outside my house in
the centre of the city.

From my window, I can see US soldiers moving around on foot near it.

They tried to go from house to house but they kept coming under fire.

Now they are firing back at the houses, at anything that moves. It is
war on the streets.

The American troops look like they have given up trying to go into
buildings for now and are just trying to control the main roads.

I am sitting here on my own, watching tragedy engulf my city.

Looks like Kabul

I was with some of the Falluja fighters earlier. They looked tired - but
their spirits were high and they were singing.


Recently, many Iraqis from other parts of the country have been joining
the local men against the Americans.
No one has had much sleep in the past two days of heavy fighting and of
course, it is still Ramadan, so no one eats during the day.

I cannot say how many people have been killed but after two days of
bombing, this city looks like Kabul.

Large portions of it have been destroyed but it is so dangerous to leave
the house that I have not been able to find out more about casualties.

Mosques silent

A medical dispensary in the city centre was bombed earlier.

I don't know what has happened to the doctors and patients who were
there.

It was last place you could get medical attention because the big
hospital on the outskirts of Falluja was captured by the Americans on
Monday.


A lot of the mosques have also been bombed.
For the first time in Falluja, a city of 150 mosques, I did not hear a
single call to prayer this morning.

I broke my Ramadan fast yesterday with the last of our food - two
potatoes and two tomatoes.

The tomatoes were rotten because we have no electricity to run the
fridge.

My neighbours - a woman and her children - came to see me yesterday.
They asked me to tell the world what is happening here.

I look at the devastation around me and ask - why?

Translation from Arabic by Jumbe Omari Jumbe of bbcarabic.com

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/3996111.stm

Published: 2004/11/09 14:12:13 GMT

C BBC MMIV

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