U.S. planes pound Fallujah with bombs

FALLUJAH, Iraq — U.S. warplanes hammered Fallujah with 500-pound laser-guided bombs yesterday as Marines battled insurgents near a train station and in neighborhoods that had seemed to be quieting.

Several families fled the city during breaks in the fighting, in which U.S. warplanes dropped 10 laser-guided bombs — most of them weighing 500 pounds, but at least one weighing 1,000 pounds — on buildings that were the source of guerrilla fire.

At least twice, AC-130 gunships opened up on insurgent positions with heavy cannons.

The violence, captured live on television with images of fiery destruction, came as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the United States to avoid a revival of the bloodshed seen in the city west of Baghdad during the first two weeks of the month.

“Violent military action by an occupying power against inhabitants of an occupied country will only make matters worse,” Mr. Annan said. “It’s definitely time, time now for those who prefer restraint and dialogue to make their voices heard.”

But President Bush said U.S. troops will use whatever force is needed to quell the uprising in the city.

“Our military commanders will take whatever action is necessary to secure Fallujah on behalf of the Iraqi people,” he said in the Oval Office. “We will deal with those who want to stop the march to freedom, and that’s exactly what’s happening in Fallujah.”

Commanders in Iraq said the Marines were responding to guerrilla attacks and that the military was sticking to a more than 2-week-old halt in offensive operations to allow negotiations.” Even though it may not look like it, there is still a determined aspiration on the part of the coalition to maintain a cease-fire and solve the situation in Fallujah by peaceful means,” Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said in the capital, Baghdad.

“What’s going on are some terrorists and regime elements have been attacking our forces, and our forces have been going out and killing them,” Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told lawmakers in Washington.

However, the escalating violence was blamed for a 135-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday.

Guerrilla attacks broke out in at least three neighborhoods of Fallujah that had been relatively quiet the past three days.

The insurgents fired on a train station just outside the city’s northern edge, prompting a battle in the Golan neighborhood, an insurgent bastion. Fighting also erupted in the northeast, southeast and center of the city.

The extent of the battle was difficult to gauge. Witnesses reported at least 25 buildings wrecked. Hospitals counted 10 wounded Iraqis, but ambulances could not reach areas where fighting was going on and residents reported large numbers of dead and wounded.

Late in the day, Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne announced that Marine patrols in the city scheduled to start today had been delayed a day.

The United States decided during the weekend to send in the patrols of Marines and Iraqi security forces to establish a semblance of control over the city.

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