8 Months After U.S.-Led Siege, Insurgents Rise Again in Falluja

By EDWARD WONG
Published: July 15, 2005

FALLUJA, Iraq, July 12 - Transformed into a police state after last winter's siege, this should be the safest city in all of Iraq.

Thousands of American and Iraqi troops live in crumbling buildings here and patrol streets laced with concertina wire. Any Iraqi entering the city must show a badge and undergo a search at one of six checkpoints. There is a 10 p.m. curfew.

But the insurgency is rising from the rubble nevertheless, eight months after the American military killed as many as 1,500 Iraqis in a costly invasion that fanned anti-American passions across Iraq and the Arab world.

Somewhere in the bowels of Falluja, the former guerrilla stronghold 35 miles west of Baghdad, where four American contractors were killed in an ambush, and the bodies of two were hanged from a bridge, in March 2004, insurgents are building suicide car bombs again.

At least four have exploded in recent weeks, one of them killing six American troops, including four women. Two of five police forts being erected have been firebombed. Three members of the nascent, 21-seat city council have suddenly quit and another member has stopped attending meetings, presumably because they have been threatened.

Just as disturbing, even Falluja residents who favored purging the streets of insurgents last November are beginning to chafe under the occupation.


Adam Nadel/Polaris, for The New York Times

Iraqi troops patrolled Falluja on Sunday. Despite their efforts, a 10 p.m. curfew and other security measures, the insurgents have been rebounding.

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