Felluce Smells Like Death

Reuters reporters passing through the city say Fallujah is a mess of destroyed mosques, demolished buildings, fallen telephone and power lines and dead bodies.

The heavy smell of decaying flesh is in the air, and the correspondents disclosed that some of the bodies are so badly disfigured that it is impossible to say whether they were civilians or soldiers. US marine Sargeant Christopher Garza was heard to comment while passing a corpse, “The best mujaheed is a dead mujaheed.”

The Colan neighborhood in the northern part of the city was once a stronghold for insurgents but is now a ghost town.

Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi appeared on Iraqi television to say that the Bagdat (Baghdad) Airport would be opened to traffic today. A week ago, the airport and the Syrian and Jordanian borders were closed when a state of emergency was declared. Allawi said, however, that the Qayim gate on the Syrian border will remain closed.