Because of bombings, a resident said, the city 'has become like hell.'

Because of bombings, a resident said, the city 'has become like hell.'
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. Army and Marine units thrust through the center of the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah today, fighting bands of guerrillas in the streets and conducting house-to-house searches on the second day of a major offensive to retake the city from Islamic militants.
In the past two days across Iraq, 14 Americans have been killed -- including three in Fallujah today and 11 others who died Monday, most of them as guerrillas launched a wave of attacks in Baghdad and southwest of Fallujah, a senior Pentagon official said.
The 11 deaths were the highest one-day U.S. toll in more than six months.
Curfew in Baghdad
As fighting raged in Fallujah, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi declared a nighttime curfew in Baghdad and its surroundings -- the first curfew in the capital for a year -- a day after a string of insurgent attacks in the city killed nine Iraqis and wounded more than 80.
Anger over the assault on the mainly Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah grew among Iraq's Sunni minority. International concerns also grew, with warnings that the military action could undermine Iraqi elections in January and the U.N. refugee agency's expressing fears over civilians' safety.
Clerics call for boycott
An influential group of Iraqi Sunni clerics called for a boycott of the election. The vote is being held "over the corpses of those killed in Fallujah," said Harith al-Dhari, director of the Association of Muslim Clerics.
If Sunnis refuse to vote on a large scale, it could wreck the legitimacy of the election, seen as vital in Iraq's move to democracy.
An estimated 6,000 U.S. troops and 2,000 allied Iraqi soldiers invaded the city from the north Monday night in a quick, powerful start to an offensive aimed at re-establishing government control ahead of the elections. The guerrillas fought off a bloody Marine offensive against the city in April.
Heavy clashes in streets
In Fallujah, heavy street clashes were raging in northern neighborhoods. By midday, U.S. armored units had made their way to the highway running east-west through the city's center and crossed over into the southern part of Fallujah, a major milestone.
Still, the military reported lighter-than-expected resistance in Jolan, a warren of alleyways in northwestern Fallujah, where guerillas were believed to be at their strongest.
That could be a sign that insurgents left the city before the operation started or that the troops have not yet reached the center location to which the resistance has fallen back, Pentagon officials said in Washington.
An estimated 6,000 U.S. troops and 2,000 allied Iraqi soldiers invaded the city from the north Monday night in a quick, powerful start to an offensive aimed at re-establishing government control over the strongest bastion of Iraq's Sunni Muslim insurgency ahead of vital elections set for January. The guerrillas fought off a bloody Marine offensive against the city in April.
The scene in Fallujah
In urban battles today, small bands of guerrillas -- fewer than 20 -- were engaging U.S. troops, then falling back in the face of overwhelming fire from American tanks, 20 mm cannons and heavy machine guns, said Time magazine reporter Michael Ware, embedded with troops. Ware reported that there appeared to be no civilians in the area he was in.
On one thoroughfare in the city, U.S. troops traded fire with gunmen holed up in a row of houses about 100 yards away. An American gunner on an armored vehicle let loose with his machine gun, grinding the upper part of a small building to rubble.
Elsewhere, witnesses reported seeing at least two American tanks engulfed in flames. A Kiowa helicopter flying over southeast Fallujah took ground fire, injuring the pilot, but he managed to return to the U.S. base.
Artillery barrages halted
The once constant thunder of artillery barrages was halted, because so many troops are moving inside the city's narrow streets. U.S. and Iraqi forces surrounded a mosque inside the city that was used as arms depot and insurgent meeting point, the BBC reported.
Col. Michael Formica, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division's 2nd Brigade, said today that a security cordon around the city will be tightened to ensure insurgents dressed in civilian clothing don't slip out.
"My concern now is only one -- not to allow any enemy to escape. As we tighten the noose around him, he will move to escape to fight another day. I do not want these guys to get out of here. I want them killed or captured as they flee," he said.
The military said this afternoon that three troops were killed and 14 were wounded in and around Fallujah during the past 12 hours.
Two Marines died Monday before the major assault when their bulldozer flipped over into the Euphrates River. Also Monday, three Marines and six soldiers were killed, most by homemade bombs, the Pentagon official said on condition of anonymity.
Troop strength
Some 10,000-15,000 U.S. troops have surrounded Fallujah, along with allied Iraqi forces, according to the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey. Commanders estimate around 3,000 Sunni fighters are in Fallujah, perhaps around 20 percent of them foreign Islamic militants.
Casey said 50 percent to 70 percent of the city's 200,000 residents have fled. The numbers are in dispute, however, with some putting the population at 300,000. Residents said about half that number left in October, but many drifted back.
Overnight, air and artillery barrages lighted up the skies over Fallujah with flashes.
"Every minute, hundreds of bombs and shells are exploding," Fadril al-Badrani, a resident who lives in the center of Fallujah, said after nightfall Monday. "The north of the city is in flames. I can also see fire and smoke. ... Fallujah has become like hell."
Al-Badrani said hundreds of houses had been destroyed.
No electricity, water
U.S. troops cut off electricity to the city, and most private generators were not on -- either because their owners wanted to conserve fuel or the wires had been damaged by explosions. Residents said they were without running water and were worried about food shortages because most shops in the city have been closed for the past two days.
On Monday, a doctor at a clinic in Fallujah, Mohammed Amer, reported 12 people were killed. Seventeen others, including a 5-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy, were wounded, he said.
The question of casualties is a major factor in the offensive. Reports of hundreds of people killed during the Marine offensive in April outraged Iraqis and forced the Marines to pull back -- allowing guerrillas to only strengthen their hold on the city.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld insisted Monday, "There aren't going to be large numbers of civilians killed and certainly not by U.S. forces."
Allawi's government has also taken a prominent role in defending the assault -- for which the prime minister gave the green light.