U.S. occupation forces besieging the Iraqi town of Ramadi are using the restoration of water and other basic services as a bargaining chip to force residents to provide information leading to the arrest of resistance fighters, the Iraqi Resistance Report website said, citing a story published by the Iraqi newspaper Mafkarat al-Islam last month.

IRAQI RESISTANCE WEB SITE

IRAQI RESISTANCE VIDEO: December, 2004, 9.8 MB, 00:04:50

Marines Rush to Aide Colleagues Pinned Down In Ramadi Last August

"The U.S. offers to turn on water, electricity, and provide welfare if residents inform on resistance fighters to U.S. occupation forces," the report said. On the radio, beamed to Ramadi's residents, American forces announced that they would stop raiding homes and mosques, open the roads to local people, and restore electricity and drinking water only if residents provided them with information about the locations and bases used by the resistance.

The U.S. military also said in the radio announcement that it would institute a program to employ young people and provide those who want to get married with financial aid - if residents informed American forces about the resistance. According to the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent, the U.S. military made the announcement more than six times as he filed his report, posted last Wednesday.

The report added that U.S. propaganda radio was jamming other local and international stations to force residents to listen to their announcements. In a statement, the U.S. military told residents that they could dial 104, a special local telephone number, to contact occupation troops with information on the whereabouts of Iraqi resistance fighters.

The message also warned the people of Ramadi that if they failed to cooperate with American troops, they would meet a fate similar to that of the residents of Fallujah, which was bombed last year by the occupation forces.

Similar concerns were previously reported by the U.N.'s Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), after the bombardment of Fallujah. On February 24, IRIN published a report that "Residents of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, some 100km west of Baghdad, have started to flee the city following the latest offensive launched by U.S. Marines and the (puppet) Iraqi army."

Marine on Patrol in Falluja Last November

"Worried that the offensive could proceed as it did in nearby Fallujah, where the majority of the city's population was forced to flee during a near three-month long campaign, many Ramadi families are taking personal effects and food supplies and heading to relatives' houses in the capital, or to the camps where residents from Fallujah fled."

IRIN said that U.S. forces imposed a cordon around Ramadi, and that most shops in the city were closed. "[P]eople are having difficulties getting food supplies as the offensive came quickly and without warning, giving them no time to prepare."

Fallujah "has become a ghost town. A very small fraction of the population has returned, certainly less than 20%; most are poor, haven't the means to live in Baghdad, and have no other place to live.

"They survive in an apocalyptic landscape, in the midst of ruins and roads blocked or clogged with burned-out cars and piles of rubble," Le Monde reported three months after the offensive against Fallujah.

"The stores are empty, looted. The hospitals have been damaged and closed. Electricity and water service are just beginning to return. Cars are only exceptionally permitted to enter the city. The residents live like nomads."