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Shelling in Iraqi City Held by Qaeda-Linked Militants Kills at Least 8 Qaeda-Linked Militants in Iraq Secure Nearly Full Control of Falluja
(about 2 hours later)
BAGHDAD — The Iraqi Army shelled the western city of Falluja overnight to try to wrest control of it from Sunni Muslim militants and local tribesmen, killing at least eight people, according to tribal leaders and officials on Saturday. BAGHDAD — Sunni militants fighting under the banner of Al Qaeda appeared to make gains across Anbar Province on Saturday, using snipers and rocket-propelled grenades in heavy street fighting, as they secured nearly full control of Falluja and captured the strategic town Karma. Government forces and the tribal militias fighting with them seemed unable to resist the militants’ advances.
Falluja has been held since Monday by militants linked to Al Qaeda and by some tribal fighters united in their opposition to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, posing a serious challenge in Anbar Province to the authority of his Shiite-led central government. One senior police official in Anbar said Saturday that “Falluja is completely under the control of Al Qaeda.” Other reports suggested that some areas on the city’s outskirts were still being contested, while government forces positioned themselves outside Falluja. They shelled the city throughout Friday night and into Saturday morning, killing at least 19 civilians and wounding dozens more, according to a hospital official in Falluja. Civilians, terrified and running low on food, were fleeing the major cities to desert villages and, in some cases, to the homes of relatives in Baghdad.
Medical officials in Falluja said that in addition to the deaths, 30 people were wounded in the army shelling. The fighting that has been going on for days has proved to be a crucial test for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government, which is facing an escalating Sunni-led insurgency that threatens to tear the country apart. The unrest and the seeming inability of the Iraqi government forces, who were trained and equipped by the United States at a cost of billions of dollars, to quell it underscores the steady deterioration of Iraq’s security since the last American troops left two years ago.
In recent months, the militants, members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, have been tightening their grip in the Sunni-dominated desert province of Anbar, near the Syrian border, in a bid to create an Islamic state across the Iraqi-Syrian borders. Over that time, Iraq’s Sunnis have become increasingly disenchanted with the policies of Mr. Maliki’s government, which has alienated Sunni leaders and carried out mass arrests of Sunni citizens in an effort to find insurgents. Such actions have made it harder for the government to halt the resurgence of Al Qaeda here. While many Sunnis may not be sympathetic to the militants, they are also reluctant to support the central government in ways that could help improve security, such as providing intelligence.
Tribal loyalties are fluid in the region, and the government has tried to secure the support of local tribal leaders with offers of guns and money. In Ramadi, the other major city in Anbar, the army and tribesmen who have decided for now to side with the central government have worked together to counter the militants seeking to take control. At the same time, while some Sunni tribal militias are fighting against the militants alongside the security forces, in other cases tribesmen are reportedly battling the government with Al Qaeda, creating a complex, three-way fight in some areas.
But in Falluja, the militants’ task has been made easier by the cooperation of other tribesmen, who have joined forces against the government with ISIS. Now that militants control nearly all of Falluja and have secured major areas of Ramadi, the province’s largest city, Sunni insurgents essentially control most of Anbar, which is Iraq’s largest province. It stretches west to the border with Syria, where the Iraqi militants’ allies in the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a Qaeda affiliate often referred to as ISIS, are waging their own insurgency.
Tension has been running high in Anbar, once the heart of Iraq’s insurgency after the 2003 American-led invasion, since the Iraqi police broke up a Sunni protest camp on Monday. At least 13 people were killed in those clashes. In a speech in Baghdad on Saturday, Mr. Maliki vowed to press on. “Fighting in Anbar Province will continue until cleared of all armed militants,” he said. “There will be no retreat before finishing the job.”
The escalating tension shows that the civil war in Syria, where mostly Sunni rebels are battling President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by the Shiite power leaders in Iran, is spilling over to other countries like Iraq and threatening a delicate sectarian balance. In a statement, Lt. Gen. Ali Ghaidan Majid, the commander of Iraq’s ground forces, said that his troops had killed 60 insurgents on Saturday and that the battles would continue until all ISIS fighters were “crushed.” A security official in Baghdad said that Friday night 13 Russian helicopters had arrived at the southern port of Umm Qasr and would be rushed to the fight.
Officials and witnesses in Falluja said the northern and eastern parts of the city were under the control of tribesmen and militants after residents fled those areas to take refuge from the army shelling. On Saturday, according to police officials in Anbar, militants took control of Karma, a town between Falluja and Ramadi, after several hours of clashes.
Militants have deployed snipers on top of empty houses and government buildings to prevent soldiers from entering the city. Police officials and witnesses in Anbar reported that militants had in several cases ambushed convoys of troops and seized heavy weapons. On Friday night, gunmen ambushed an army patrol just north of Falluja, killing four soldiers and making off with eight Humvees, according to a police official. The soldiers, more than 50 of them, escaped and sought the protection of a local sheikh; they exchanged their uniforms for dishdashas, traditional Arab gowns, and were driven to a nearby village, the official said.
A heavy firefight also erupted on the main highway linking Baghdad and Anbar, with fighters taking three tanks and other military vehicles, according to police officials.
The fighters, though, apparently did not know how to use the tanks, and put out a call over a mosque’s loudspeaker: “If anyone knows how to drive a tank, please come to the mosque.”

Yasir Ghazi reported from Baghdad, and Tim Arango from Istanbul. An employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Anbar Province.