Fallujah

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Fallujah
location
Fallujah (Iraq)
Fallujah
Fallujah
Coordinates 33 ° 21 '  N , 43 ° 47'  E Coordinates: 33 ° 21 '  N , 43 ° 47'  E
Country IraqIraq Iraq
Governorate al-Anbar
Basic data
Residents 326,471 (2010)
View of Fallujah 2004
View of Fallujah 2004

Fallujah ( Arabic الفلوجة, DMG al-Fallūǧa ; also Al Fallūjah ) is a city in the Iraqi province of al-Anbar . It is located about 50 kilometers west of Baghdad and has 326,471 inhabitants (as of 2010). Fallujah is predominantly inhabited by Sunnis .

In Iraq, the city is also known as the "City of Mosques" as there are many mosques in and around the city .

history

Origins

Fallujah already existed during the Babylonian Empire. The city has long been an important center for Jewish scholars. The Academy of Pumbedita , as the city was called in Aramaic , was the world's most important center of Jewish learning until the 11th century.

In the British-Iraqi war of 1941 , the Iraqi army was defeated near Fallujah.

From the Iraqi declaration of independence in 1947, when Fallujah was still a small town with around 10,000 (1965 census: 36,330 inhabitants), the population rose to over 300,000 by 2003.

In the era of Saddam Hussein , who ruled Iraq between 1979 and 2003, Sunni Fallujah was one of the regime's most important supporters. Fallujah became an important industrial city. During the rule of Hussein, a lot was invested in the city's infrastructure, including a ring road system . Many Baath Party supporters and officers, as well as state employees, lived in the city. The US military dubbed the area around Fallujah the "Sunni Triangle" - an area that has attracted particularly active resistance since the 2003 Iraq war.

Second Gulf War

Fallujah suffered the most civilian casualties in the 1991 Gulf War. About 200 people died in two attempts to destroy a bridge over the Euphrates .

First, a British bomber attempted to destroy the bridge using laser-guided bombs , but hit the town's market in the process. About 150 people died. In a second attack, another bomb hit the market square and killed another 50 people. The bridge is at least 300 meters from the market.

Iraq war

Caravanserai in Ottoman Fallujah, 1914

Fallujah gained notoriety and international recognition when the city became the scene of fierce fighting between US troops and rebels during the Iraq war in late 2003 to November 2004.

The "Zeit" reporter Reiner Luyken regards Fallujah as a "symbolic city for the abysses of the Iraq war". Immediately after taking the country by a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division of the United States and its allies to Fallujah initially turned on 23 April 2003 as a more stable and peaceful than other parts of the country. A council appointed by local influencers had taken control of the city during the collapse of the Iraqi government and largely prevented looting and violent clashes. The US troops in Fallujah initially set up their headquarters in the former headquarters of the Ba'ath Party on the outskirts. Shortly thereafter, Camp Buheira was set up around three kilometers southeast of the city, which served as a local base for the US troops until they withdrew in 2009.

The first large-scale armed conflict in Fallujah took place on April 28, 2003: US soldiers had confiscated a school building in the two days before in order to use it as a base. In contrast, despite the curfew, around 200 demonstrators gathered and threw stones; Soldiers shot at the demonstrators (according to US data due to previous attacks by the demonstrators). 20 Iraqis were killed, including children, around 85 wounded. In the next two days there were renewed demonstrations, which grew to thousands of people. The curfew and the nearby Abu Ghuraib prison increased public resentment. Fallujah quickly developed into a center of resistance against the occupation , in the vicinity of which many attacks were carried out on the occupation forces. In May 2003, the 82nd Airborne Division was replaced by the 3rd US Armored Cavalry Regiment and then by the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd US Infantry Division . In the city, only one battalion was deployed, the soldiers of which set up checkpoints and carried out house searches. On November 2, 2003, an American transport helicopter of the type CH-47 "Chinook" was hit by two Iraqi air defense missiles of the type Strela-2 (SA-7 Grail) . The helicopter crashed and 15 US soldiers died. On March 31, 2004, four security advisors from the US company Blackwater Security Consulting were attacked . Their bodies were burned by the population and some of them were later hung on a bridge. The pictures of the desecration attracted international media attention.

Siege and fighting in April 2004

The US troops were increasingly on the defensive and were supported by US Special Forces units, which were supposed to fight rebel groups, whose influence on the neighboring cities and others. a. grew in Ramadi . For the first time, the Al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (German: Unity and Holy War) movement of the radical leader Abu Musab az-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the attacks in the city. In February 2004, two battalions of the newly formed Iraqi National Guard were relocated to Fallujah. As a counter-action, the insurgents attacked the Iraqi police headquarters, killed 23 Iraqi police officers and freed 75 of their fighters from prison. The National Guard had to withdraw to the area around Fallujah. In early March, the last deployed US battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division was withdrawn. It had lost around 94 soldiers to death or wounding within seven months.

The US Marine Corps replaced the US Army in this area, and the I. Marine Expeditionary Force (under Lieutenant General James T. Conway ) with the 1st Marine Division (under Major General James N. Mattis ) were responsible for the Fallujah area. At the end of March 2004, the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment took command in the city.

In the course of Operation Vigilant Resolve that followed, with the siege and bombing of Fallujah by US troops using white phosphorus , cluster bombs and uranium ammunition , at least 600 Iraqis were killed and 1,200 injured. On the coalition side, 81 US soldiers were killed and over 90 injured. Almost a third of the residents fled Fallujah in the course of the action. The United States Army laid siege to Fallujah for four weeks . On April 30, 2004 she installed Jazim Muhammad Salih , who was general under Saddam Hussein , as plenipotentiary in Fallujah and began to dissolve the siege ring. Salih presented the Fallujah Brigade , which was supposed to keep the city in order. The force of around 1200 men moved into the areas that were evacuated by the Americans. At least 31 US soldiers and five Iraqi national guards were killed.

After only five days, Salih (a Sunni from the Dulaimi tribe ) was replaced by the American staff, "they made a mistake in appointing a former general of the Republican Guards to lead the Fallujah Brigade." Instead, the Americans installed Muhammad Latif .

Captured in November 2004

Fallujah in November 2004

From November 8 to 16, 2004 there was renewed fighting as part of Operation Phantom Fury . Since the Fallujah Brigade could not stop the influx of resistance fighters for various reasons, the city had become a refuge for rebels and Islamists, which the US military believed was used as a starting point for numerous insurgent actions. Furthermore, the Iraqi fighter Abu Musab az-Zarqawi was suspected in the city. As a result, the population was asked to leave the city, which many of the city's residents followed. The Associated Press reported that US forces began to prevent men and boys ages 15 to 65 from leaving the city in early November. According to US data, around 1200 rebels were killed as part of the offensive. Zarqawi was not caught. On the American side, 71 soldiers died and 621 were wounded. According to the British organization Iraqi Body Count , around 700 civilians died.

As a result of the fighting, large parts of Fallujah were destroyed and a significant proportion of the population did not return. Fallujah, like large parts of Al-Anbar province, was still a stronghold of the rebels in 2006. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had warned in letters to the governments of the USA and Great Britain that a major offensive against Fallujah could lead to alienation and the impression of an occupation. Conservative commentators, on the other hand, stress that Fallujah was conquered at the request of the Iraqi interim government.

In autumn 2005, British and Italian media reports revealed that US forces in Fallujah had used white phosphorus and Mark-77 bombs against bunkers in the city. The USA is one of the states that signed the 1980 Arms Convention . The protocol does not generally prohibit use, but rather when there is a possibility that civilians will be harmed. In November 2005, the US Department of Defense spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable told the BBC : “ We use it primarily as a blackout, smoke curtain, or“ target mark ”. But it was also used as an incendiary weapon against enemy fighters ”. Phosphorus bombs would be used to drive insurgents out of positions that cannot be reached with normal artillery .

Consequences of war

President Obama kept a campaign promise and withdrew all American troops from Iraq at the end of 2011 ; Protesters celebrated Fallujah as a "city of resistance".

Health data

Two years after the attacks in spring 2004, cases of leukemia , meningitis , thalassemia , septicemia , congenital malformations of the kidneys and brain tumors occurred in very large numbers, predominantly in children , which is presumably due to poisoning from the white phosphorus and uranium weapons used.

Current analyzes show a 38-fold increase in leukemia, a 10-fold increase in breast cancer in women, and considerable increases in lymphoma , the number of brain tumors in adults and infant mortality . It is also noticeable that the relationship between male and female newborns has changed. While a normal ratio was about 1050 boys to 1000 girls, the birth rate of boys fell by 18% from 2005 onwards, resulting in a ratio of 850 boys to 1000 girls. This is an indicator of genetic damage that affects boys more than girls. Similar changes as in the case of Fallujah were found in Hiroshima as a result of the atomic bombing. In comparison to Hiroshima, it is not only that the leukemia rate is more than twice as high as after the atomic bombs there, but also the speed with which people get sick.

In 2011, high levels of uranium were found in soil samples, drinking water and other water sources, as well as in hair samples from parents of malformed children. It was not, as expected, depleted uranium , but highly radioactive, slightly enriched uranium . Enriched uranium was also found in the air filters of vehicles in Lebanon and Gaza, as well as in Afghanistan and the Balkans , after the 2006 Lebanon War .

Occupation by the IS from 2014 to 2016

In December 2013, fighters from the jihadist - Salafist terrorist organization Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) began to take control of the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi . The Iraqi government sent soldiers from the Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) to fight terrorism in both cities. On January 4, 2014, ISIS took Fallujah apart from a few suburbs.

In January 2016, Fallujah was still under ISIS control; the Iraqi army besieged the city. On February 19, 2016, heavy fighting broke out between the Sunni Albu Nimr tribe, supported by air strikes by the International Alliance against ISIS and militias of the Islamic State. A spontaneous uprising in the city was put down by IS. Since the end of March 2016 there have been reports of famine due to the siege.

On the night of May 23, 2016, the Iraqi army began an offensive to recapture the city from IS. Remaining civilians were asked to leave the city beforehand. Those who are unable to do so should hoist a white flag and stay away from IS headquarters. The number of civilians trapped was estimated at around 50,000. In the course of the offensive, Iraqi fighter planes flew more air strikes in the Fallujah district. The offensive was supported by police units, tribal forces, Shiite militias and aircraft of the US Air Force ( see Operation Inherent Resolve ). IS commander Maher al-Bilawi fell at the end of May 2016. On May 30, the Iraqi army announced it was advancing towards the city center.

Shiite militias in Fallujah on T-72 tanks in June 2016 after defeating IS fighters.

The government troops advanced slowly coming from the south and destroyed parts of the city with artillery fire. The top was formed by a special unit of the Iraqi military, also known as the "Golden Brigade". On June 16, 2016, IS withdrew the last fighters from the city's central checkpoints, allowing numerous civilians to flee.

On June 17, 2016, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced that most of Fallujah had been retaken by government troops.

However, the fighting continued. Most of the IS fighters had withdrawn from the government troops before the last offensive, but left a small contingent of snipers and suicide bombers behind. They also hid numerous booby traps in the city. The remaining IS fighters used tunnels to move under the city and to emerge surprisingly, to fire a few grenades with mortars and then to retreat. Others tried to steer cars filled with explosives into military formations and detonate them there. According to the Iraqi military, around 150 IS fighters are said to have hidden in the stream of refugees from the city. Residents identified IS fighters who had shaved their beards and mixed with the refugees.

On June 30, 2016, the media reported that a convoy of IS fighters was bombed. 250 members of the IS were killed.

See also

literature

  • Thomas E. Ricks: Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. Penguin Press, London / New York 2006, ISBN 0-14-303891-5 (English).
  • Markus Reisner: Fallujah - fight for an Iraqi city. In: BMLV (Hrsg.): Troop service - magazine for training, leadership and deployment. No. 297, pp. 266–273, August 1, 2007 and No. 298, pp. 359–366, October 1, 2007, AV + Astoria Druckzentrum, Vienna 2007.

Web links

Commons : Fallujah  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e Reiner Luyken : Iraq - The Fallujah Trap . In: The time . No. July 31 , 28, 2005 ( zeit.de [accessed April 13, 2019]).
  2. Barry Gray: The real lessons of Fallujah. In: World Socialist Web Site. April 3, 2004, accessed April 5, 2010 .
  3. Reiner Luyken: Iraq: The awakening. (Not available online.) In: zeit.de . July 5, 2009, archived from the original on February 16, 2015 ; accessed on February 16, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zeit.de
  4. USA shocked by the dance of death in Fallujah. Retrieved April 27, 2010 .
  5. Markus Reisner: Fallujah - Struggle for an Iraqi City (I). In: Austria's Armed Forces. March 2007, accessed April 5, 2010 .
  6. ^ A b Thomas E. Ricks: Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. Penguin Press, 2006.
  7. US Won't Let Men Flee Fallujah. In: foxnews.com. November 13, 2004, accessed February 16, 2015 .
  8. US Marines storm Fallujah. In: handelsblatt.com . November 8, 2004, accessed February 16, 2015 .
  9. Nile Gardiner: The UN's Fallujah Folly. In: heritage.org. September 16, 2004, accessed February 16, 2015 .
  10. US 'uses incendiary arms' in Iraq. In: news.bbc.co.uk. November 8, 2005, accessed February 16, 2015 .
  11. ^ Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects (with Protocols I, II and III), Geneva, October 10, 1980
  12. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article327379.ece ( Memento from January 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  13. Fadhil al-Badrani, Ahmed Rasheed: Thousands celebrate US withdrawal in Iraq's Falluja. In: Reuters.com . December 14, 2011 (English).
  14. Chris Busby, Malak Hamdan, Entesar Ariabi: Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009. In: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. July 6, 2010, accessed August 10, 2010 .
  15. Robert Cockburn: Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah 'worse than Hiroshima'. In: The Independent. July 24, 2010, accessed August 10, 2010 .
  16. Hannah Gurman: The_under-examined_story_of_Fallujah. In: Foreign Policy in Focus.
  17. US uranium to blame for deformed babies in Fallujah? In: rt.com. October 25, 2011, accessed February 16, 2015 .
  18. ^ Daniel Glaus: Islamists proclaim the state of God in Iraq. In: tagesanzeiger.ch. January 2, 2014, accessed February 16, 2015 .
  19. AFP: Islamist rebels on the rise. In: FAZ.net . January 2, 2014, accessed February 16, 2015 .
  20. ^ Fighting in Iraq - Islamists conquer Fallujah. In: sueddeutsche.de . January 4, 2014, accessed February 16, 2015 .
  21. Besieged Fallujah running out of food. Retrieved February 17, 2016 .
  22. Iraq Tribesmen Battle IS Inside Fallujah For Second Day. (No longer available online.) In: updatednews.ca. January 20, 2014, archived from the original on February 20, 2016 ; accessed on February 20, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.updatednews.ca
  23. ISIS Beating Woman Triggers Fallujah Clashes: Officials. In: nbcnews.com. January 26, 2016, accessed January 21, 2019 .
  24. https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Die-Belagerung-von-Falludscha-3379299.html
  25. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36401369
  26. Fight against IS: Iraq starts military offensive to recapture Fallujah. Spiegel Online, May 23, 2016.
  27. ^ Iraq Begins Assault on Islamic State in Fallujah. The Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2016. (English)
  28. Idrees Ali: Islamic State commander in Falluja killed, US military says. In: reuters.com. May 27, 2016, accessed on August 5, 2020 .
  29. Iraqi army advances to the center of Fallujah. Focus / dpa, May 30, 2016.
  30. a b Florian Neuhof: Fallujah dispatch: inch by inch they advance, sniper and booby traps at every turn. The Telegraph dated June 19, 2016
  31. ^ IS conflict: Iraqi forces 'retake most' of Falluja. BBC News, June 17, 2016, accessed June 18, 2016 .
  32. Fallujah: US air strikes kill 250 IS fighters in Iraq. In: Zeit Online. June 30, 2016, accessed June 30, 2016 .