Warplanes have bombed a government clinic in the centre of Falluja as US ground forces engaged in pitched battles with fighters defending the city.
Residents said the one-storey Popular Clinic which had been receiving wounded anti-US fighters and civilians was hit overnight as US-led forces pressed into the city. The residents said on Tuesday it was impossible to reach the clinic because of heavy bombing and US tanks in the area. The clinic's telephones were no longer working.
An Iraqi journalist, Abu Bakr al-Dulaimi, told Aljazeera that the overnight bombings which continued for more than 10 hours targeted everything in the city including the hospital, houses as well as cars. Al-Dulaimi said the hospital's staff, doctors and patients, have all fallen victim to the assault. He said such fierce bombings have not been witnessed since the Iran-Iraq war.
The US military said it had no immediate information on any attack on the clinic.
Fighting fierce
Fierce clashes erupted between American troops and anti-US fighters in the neighbourhoods of al-Askari, al-Jughaivi and al-Dhubat near the northern gate of the city, Aljazeera learned. Residents said smoke was rising from the whole city as it shook to constant explosions. Civilians were huddled in their homes and there was no word on casualties.
A US tank company commander in Iraq said on Tuesday that guerrillas were putting up a strong fight in the Jolan district of north-west Falluja, which is a rebel stronghold.
"These people are hardcore. They are putting up a strong fight and I saw many of them on the street I was on," Captain Robert Bodisch told Reuters.
"A man pulled out from behind a wall and fired an RPG at my tank. I have to get another tank to go back in there," he said without giving details.
The agency also reported that a US helicopter had been shot down.
"I saw the helicopter collide with a rocket. It turned into a ball of fire and fell to the ground," said Reuters reporter Fadl al-Badrani. "There was smoke everywhere." He said the helicopter crashed in the city's Jolan district. A US military spokesman, however, had denied the report.
Scores injured
US and Iraqi forces seized Falluja's main hospital, across the Euphrates river from the city centre, on Monday night hours before the main offensive got under way.
Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor at the hospital, who escaped arrest when it was taken, said the city was running out of medical supplies and only a few clinics remained open. "There is not a single surgeon in Falluja. We had one ambulance hit by US fire and a doctor wounded. There are scores of injured civilians in their homes whom we can't move."
"A 13-year-old child just died in my hands," he told reporters by telephone from a house where he had gone to help the wounded.
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