U.S. assaults Fallujah; dozens dead in car bombings

FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. forces poised to assault Fallujah bombarded the rebel stronghold on Saturday, while insurgents launched deadly attacks that killed 34 people in Samarra, another city in Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland.

The fiercest U.S. air and artillery strikes on Fallujah in months destroyed a hospital, a medical warehouse and dozens of houses, dazed residents said after a sleepless night.

Hospital staff said ambulances had been unable to go out as the city shook to explosions. Later they collected two dead and seven wounded civilians, among them women and children.

With a U.S.-led offensive on Fallujah apparently imminent, rebels hit back with attacks in Samarra, Baghdad and Ramadi.

U.S. and Iraqi forces stormed Samarra a month ago to dislodge rebels in what was seen as a prelude to the full-scale offensive now planned for Fallujah and Ramadi, west of Baghdad.

The operations are part of the U.S.-backed interim government's drive to crush a Sunni-led insurgency and retake rebel cities so that elections can go ahead in January. The latest attacks showed that Samarra is far from pacified.

A Marine spokesman said an attack on a U.S. convoy wounded 20 Marines in Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad. A police source said it had been a car bomb blast.

Hospital staff said at least one Iraqi was killed and 14 wounded in clashes between rebels and U.S. forces in Ramadi.

Insurgents also battled U.S. troops near a highway just north of Fallujah and American planes bombed targets on the northern edge of the city, witnesses said.

In Samarra, a suicide car bomber rammed into a police station and three car bombs exploded elsewhere in the city. Insurgents also attacked three other police stations.

Police said the onslaught had killed 34 people, including 19 police, two Iraqi National Guards, two members of an Iraqi Rapid Reaction Force and 11 civilians. They said 43 people had been wounded, 28 of them members of the security forces.

"I saw a dead National Guard burning on the ground," said one witness after the first bombings.

"I saw a car trying to reach the town hall," said bookshop owner Mohammed Ahmed. "When police stopped it, it exploded."

In Baghdad, a powerful explosion struck the main airport road, destroying what appeared to be a Humvee military vehicle, witnesses said, but there was no word on casualties.

A suicide car bomber attacked a U.S. checkpoint on the airport road earlier this week, killing a British security guard, an Iraqi security man and two Iraqi civilians.

Waking to destructionIn Fallujah, residents said the overnight bombardment had reduced a small Saudi-funded hospital to rubble.

Only its facade, with a sign reading Nazzal Emergency Hospital, remained intact. Reuters photographs showed blue surgical cloths and empty medicine boxes amid the ruins.

A nearby compound used by the main Fallujah Hospital to store medical supplies was also destroyed, witnesses said.

Most of the city's 300,000 people have already fled. After Friday night's barrage, many more streamed out of the city to the northwest on the only road left open by U.S. forces.

"I left the city two days ago, but my heart is still in Fallujah," said Abu Mohammed, who had taken his family to stay with relatives near the city. "We are living in terror."

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned that an attack on Fallujah could undermine the elections, but his comments drew a chilly response from interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

Annan criticized the expected assault in letters to Allawi, U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, saying it would spark more Iraqi anger and damage the credibility of the nationwide elections set for Jan. 27.

Allawi, due back in Baghdad soon after a trip to Europe, told the BBC Annan's letter was confused and unclear.

"I don't know what pressure he has to bear on the insurgents. If he can stop the insurgents from inflicting damage and killing Iraqis, then he is welcome," he said.

Allawi says Fallujah is a haven for former Saddam fighters and militants led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Zarqawi's group said it was behind a suicide car bombing on Thursday that killed three British troops south of Baghdad.

	U.S. Marines leave for a mission outside Fallujah on Thursday. American forces are in the midst of a major assault on Fallujah in an effort to restore control to a swath of Sunni Muslim towns north and west of the capital ahead of elections due by Jan. 31.(AP)