Fallujah: city of death and despair

EIGHT months after United States troops led the second invasion of Fallujah to flush out militants from the lawless Iraqi city, there is hardly a street that does not still feature a building pulverised during the assault.

As many as 80 per cent of the 300,000-plus residents have come home, but Fallujah has by no means returned to normal.

Curfew begins at 10pm and residents have to wait at US marine checkpoints to enter the city, which they can do only with special ID badges, provided by the Americans, which include a retinal scan and fingerprinting. Despite the security precautions, low-level fighting continues in the former rebel stronghold, 40 miles west of Baghdad.

A visit to the city found local police hard at work adding razor wire and concrete blast barriers to the already sprawling fortifications around their main station, while US and Iraqi army patrols traversed the main street, the Iraqis firing their rifles in the air to clear traffic. Small arms chattered somewhere in the distance, followed by a response from a larger gun.

"They are killing one or two of us every day," said an Iraqi soldier at one of the checkpoints. This is confirmed by doctors at Fallujah's general hospital,

the first objective taken by the US in November's invasion.

Doctors Ahmed and Salam, who agreed to be interviewed on condition that their names were changed, lamented the condition of Fallujah and its people. On average, Ahmed said, they see one or two dead civilians every day. Hundreds have been killed since the city was taken over by the US. "Just yesterday, a middle-aged lady was brought here by coalition forces - she was killed by a single shot to the head," he said.

Salam added: "The people of Fallujah feel depressed because they can't move freely from place to place because the coalition forces and the Iraqi national guard make new checkpoints every day, make new obstacles. They cannot move freely at night. There are medical cases at night that result in casualties because they cannot reach us."

At Al-Furqan Mosque, one of the more moderate places of worship, some men stay after prayers to discuss the situation. Even more than the US military, they feel the new government has laid siege to their city. "They use their weapons to clear traffic," said Imam Abdul Majid.

"We can say the Americans are better than them. Let me speak frankly - the new government has failed. Before, we were oppressed by invaders. Now it's getting worse."

Most of the reconstruction that has taken place since the fighting has been the partial rebuilding of houses. Ayad Allawi's interim government sent 20 per cent of the promised compensation, but the money has since dried up, as more needs to be spent on security.

"Shops are broken into at night," one of the men gathered at the mosque said. "Tell me, if there is a curfew and the army and the police control the streets, who is breaking into our shops?"

Back at the hospital, Ahmed said he expected the fighting to continue. "Even civilian people will change to be fighters," he said. "We regard Fallujah as a large prison."