Bombs Fall on Fallujah
VOA News
27 Apr 2004, 18:59 UTC
Heavy shelling is reported in the volatile city of Fallujah, where an extended coalition cease-fire expired Tuesday.
Loud explosions, flashes of light and smoke could be seen lighting up the night sky over the city, west of Baghdad, ending a day of relative quiet. A pool reporter on the scene said a U.S. aerial gunship was striking insurgent positions in the mainly Sunni city.
Earlier, U.S. General Mark Kimmitt said 64 Shi'ite militiamen were killed in fierce overnight clashes with coalition forces north of the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf.
He said the fighting began when members of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militia attacked a coalition patrol. The clashes took place on the eastern side of the Euphrates River, east of Kufa.
Coalition forces have been locked in a stand-off with the militia and have surrounded Najaf. But the coalition wants to avoid being drawn into a potentially explosive battle with Shi'ite rebels there.
General Kimmitt said an American soldier was killed Tuesday and another wounded in a Shi'ite neighborhood in Baghdad (Sadr City). And he announced that representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross visited former dictator Saddam Hussein for a second time since his capture in December.
And Spanish military officials say their troops have completed their withdrawal from Najaf. Spain's new prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, says all Spanish troops will leave Iraq by May 27. In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair ruled out sending more British troops to Iraq, saying his country has "sufficient" forces there.
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