Falloujah

Falloujah is a town of Iraq located in the province of Al-Anbâr. Its population is estimated at 250 000 inhabitants.

Geography

Located at 69 km in the west of Baghdad, on the Euphrate, it constitutes an important crossroads on the road connecting the Iraqi capital to the Jordan.

History

Falloujah is known in Iraq like the “city of the mosques” because of the high number of temples in the city and its immediate area (more than 200). The city was for a long time the intellectual center most important of the Moslems sunnites of the area.

As many Iraqi cities, the site has been occupied for several millenia and one finds important traces of the human presence going up at the time Babylonian. The origin of the name of the city is not known, but the usual assumption is to make derive its name from the word Assyrie N Pallugtha , meaning division. Indeed, the paléo-hydrological studies indicate that, in the Antiquité, Euphrate was divided into two branches at this place. This division disappeared today.

Falloujah was a small town without much importance during civilization Perse and under the Arab Caliph S because the city of Al-Anbar, which gives her name to the province, located in the north of Falloujah had charmed the quality of principal regional intellectual center to him. It was besides, under the Abbasid caliphate, the capital of the empire. With its decline, the area lost of its importance and Al-Anbar was abandoned: it is today with the state of ruins.

The Othoman era did not give again with Falloujah the gloss and the prestige of its past and, in 1947, at the time of the independence of Iraq, it counted only 10.000 inhabitants. During the 50 years which followed, the population of the city was multiplied by 25.

Under the mode of Saddam Hussein

During the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, the city profited from generosities and the benevolences of the Head of the State. Several influential members of the Parti Baath lived in Falloujah. Thus, the area was opposed to the mode than the majority of the other areas of Iraq. Several factories, including chemical plants being able to be used with the development as chemical weapons, were built in the city. Some were closed by the inspectors of the United Nations, made to Iraq after the defeat of 1991.

During the first war of the gulf, in 1991, the city underwent fatal bombardments. Twice, several essential civil infrastructures were destroyed by error and a bomb fell down on a market, killing 200 civilians and creating a feeling of anger in the population.

The revolt of Falloujah

The combination of these factors did of Falloujah one of the most dangerous places for the troops of the coalition which took the control of the country after the third war of the gulf in 2003, like for the governmental troops. One counts more than 60 dead among the united forces, fallen under the blows from the insurrectionists.

The March 31st 2004, four citizens of the the United States which worked for the private military Société Blackwater the USA, a company charged to train soldiers and to provide Mercenaire S on behalf of the army of the United States were brutally killed. Their body, burned by the fire of the cross-country vehicle where it took seat, was trailed by vehicles, was mutilated and hung with a bridge by the civil population in jubilation. This event was perceived in the United States and everywhere in the world with emotion.

The result was the seat of the city by the American army and the release of many combat with rebellious forces, between 600 and 800 dead will be counted Iraqi side.

Starting from the April 9th, the American army then makes the seat of the city to drive out of them the radical war leaders (called “emirs”) and Imams. 70 000 women, children and old men are authorized to leave the valid city, but not men. During April 2004, this seat ( Operation Vigilant Solves ) will cause the death of forty US Navy and 600 to 800 Iraqis. This seat knew cease-fires, humane passages to provide the city in drugs. But, he knew attacks of the guerilla type on the side of risen and errors in the shootings American side.

At the beginning of the month of May 2004, the American troops raise the seat and impose an Iraqi brigade and a general baasist to control the city. For the insurrectionists, this withdrawal is sign of their victory. Several members of the Iraqi government pointed out that during the seat, there were less attacks in Baghdad, thus insinuating that the silent partners of these acts are in Falloujah.

According to the reports carried out in Falloujah in May 2004, Falloujah had become a kind of Islamic Republic , whose law was applied by the Moudjahidin S. the receiver of the French newspaper Le Monde (edition of July 1st, 2004) testifies to posters prohibiting the consumption of alcohol or the make-up for the women.

Battle of Falloujah

See the detailed article: Battle of Falloujah

In November 2004, after the re-election of the president George W. Bush, the army of the United States takes again the control of the city following bloody combat.

Catalog of films

Falloujah, the massacre hidden , documentary of Italian television SPOKE.

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