IRAQ: US warplanes bombarded hard core rebel areas of Falluja yesterday as troops hunted insurgents house-to-house in a city already devastated by the ferocity of the military's seven-day onslaught.
The US military says it has taken control of Falluja, but scattered resistance remained yesterday, particularly in southern parts of the city.
Violence that has surged across Iraq's Sunni Muslim region since the US offensive was launched hit Mosul in the north for a fifth day, while there was heavy fighting in Baquba near Baghdad, where US jets dropped 500-pound bombs. Rebels also set fire to oil wells and a pumping station across the north.
The US Marine general who commanded the fight to take Falluja said those who remained were the rebel hard core who would be killed. There was no aid crisis in the city, he said.
"What you're seeing now are some of the hardliners. They seem to be better equipped than some of the earlier ones. We've seen flak jackets on some of them," Maj Gen Richard Natonski told the BBC.
"But we're more determined and we're going to wipe them out," he said.
While US forces have won a military victory, the process of rebuilding Falluja, assisting about 150,000 residents who fled and preparing it for January elections could take months.
Iraq's Red Crescent group sent seven truckloads of food and medicine to the city, but US forces blocked the aid convoy at Falluja's main hospital and said it could not enter. The convoy turned back yesterday after three days of frustration.
"It's our third day here at the hospital and all we have done is receive promises from the Americans," Mr Hassan Rawi, a member of the International Federation of the Red Cross, said.
US commanders say they are working to deliver assistance to the city themselves, and urged any Iraqis needing aid to go to Falluja's main hospital on the western outskirts.
Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said he did not believe any civilians were killed in the offensive, which has left 38 US soldiers, 6 Iraqi troops and more than 1,200 insurgents dead. But witness accounts contradicted him.
A member of an Iraqi relief committee told Al Jazeera television he saw 22 bodies buried in rubble in Falluja's northern Jolan district on Sunday.
"Of the 22 bodies, five were found in one house as well as two children whose ages did not exceed 15 and a man with an artificial leg," Mr Mohammed Farhan Awad said.
"Some of the bodies we found had been eaten by stray dogs and cats. It was a very painful sight."
Aid agencies have described the situation as a humanitarian disaster, basing their view on the accounts of refugees who have fled and images broadcast on television.
Meanwhile, two US soldiers were wounded in a car bomb attack on a convoy on the highway leading west from Mosul.
"I expect the next few days will bring some hard fighting," US commander Brig Gen Carter Ham said in an email.
"The situation in Mosul is tense, but certainly not desperate."
There were also heavy clashes between US troops and insurgents in Baquba, about 65 kilometres north of Baghdad.
US warplanes dropped two 500-pound bombs on insurgents' positions after rebels overran police stations and attacked other areas of the city.
At least 20 insurgents were killed and four US soldiers were wounded, the US military said.
Another police station in the town of Buhriz, just south of Baquba, was also attacked and the police chief assassinated.
The Labour Party spokesman on foreign affairs, Mr Michael D. Higgins, said: "The refusal by the assaulting powers in Falluja to allow food, water and medicine that has been brought to the relief of the occupants of that city at great risk by the International Red Crescent raises fundamental new questions as to whether the Geneva Conventions. . .and indeed international law itself can survive the Iraq war.
"The laying aside of rules of behaviour established and evolved after the last world war and accepted by the international community will be the legacy of our times and in particular of George Bush and Tony Blair," Mr Higgins said.