US Death Toll Hits 1,000, Fallujah Fiercely Hit
"Significant numbers of enemy fighters (up to 100) are estimated to have been killed," the US military said in a statement carried by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"We are responding after being under fire. We are hitting enemy positions in the city since 6:30 pm (1430 GMT). We are using aircraft and artillery fire," said US Marine spokesman Lieutenant Colonel T.V. Johnson.
However, sources in Fallujah told AFP that the strikes have killed at least six Iraqis and wounded scores others.
Analysts played down the staggering death toll in Fallujah, saying it is part of a psychological warfare given the 14 US soldiers killed within 48 hours.
Iraqi medics have also told Reuters that the general hospital’s morgue has only received four bodies.
One ambulance driver further told AFP that he had taken two dead and 15 wounded to hospital.
US aircraft and artillery pounded the southern Shuhada district and industrial zone of Fallujah.
Smoke mushroomed into the sky. Warplanes strafed the industrial zone the general hospital had received an undetermined number of casualties and panic swept the city.
Mosque loud speakers wailed "God is Great" amid the cacophony.
Fallujah, which lies 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, is a bastion of the Iraqi resistance against US-led forces in Iraq.
A US air strike on what the Americans claimed was a suspected resistance position in the city killed 20 people one week ago.
Residents of Fallujah have often countered US claims that resistance fighters were being attacked, saying that those coming under fire were ordinary Iraqi civilians.
In April, at least 700 Iraqis, mostly women and children, were killed and 1500 others injured when the US occupation forces imposed a tight siege on the city and intensified air strikes on its densely-populated areas.
1000 Casualties
Meanwhile, the United States military death toll in Iraq reached 1,000 Tuesday, nearly 18 months after the invasion, making its mark on the US presidential election campaign, AFP said.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that the 1,000 death toll would soon be passed.
But he insisted that Iraq was better off than before the US-led invasion in March 2003.
"Soon the American forces are likely to suffer the 1,000th casualty at the hands of terrorists and extremists in Iraq. When combined with US losses in other theaters in the global war on terror, we have lost well more than 1,000 already," he said.
Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in their joint press conference that "insurgent" attacks on US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan were likely to intensify as elections in the two countries approach.
"There are really no free passes in this struggle, this war. There are no free passes for countries. There are really no free passes for individuals," Rumsfeld said.
"And for that reason the civilized world has to stay on the offensive. And that’s exactly what the coalition is doing," he said.
The rival democrats’ camp has, however, termed the 1,000 mark as a "black one" in the history of America.
"Of all the wrong choices that President Bush has made, the most catastrophic choice is the mess that he has made in Iraq," Reuters quoted Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry as telling a town hall meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Seven US marines and three Iraqi national guardsmen were killed in a car bombing near Fallujah Monday, September 6, the worst single strike against the US military in months.
The Washington Post said Sunday, September 5, that about 1,100 US soldiers and Marines were wounded in Iraq during the month of August alone, by far the highest injury toll for any month since the invasion of Iraq began.
Nearly 7,000 US troops have been wounded since the US-led invasion in March last year, according to a Reuters count.
The war on Iraq fuels the presidential race to the White House with Democratic candidate John Kerry frequently hitting out at Bush for the awkward policy in Iraq and trying to make it a major campaign issue.
