Byline: From CHRIS HUGHES Security Correspondent in Fallujah
TENSION permeates every battle-scarred inch of Fallujah as locals emerge from the ruins to make a last ditch bid for a stake in Iraq's future.
The city known as "Guerilla Central" is on a knife-edge as its hard-line Sunni rebel community waits to see if yesterday's elections will give them a foothold in the struggle for power in Central Iraq.
Beyond the besieged city, Iraq is teetering towards civil war and watching carefully to see what happens in Fallujah - violent heartland of insurgency.
As one American diplomat said: "Judgments about whether this election will make or break this insurgency are premature as are judgments that we are at civil war."
It has been more than two and a half years since the Daily Mirror witnessed and reported exclusively on the April 2003 shooting by US Marines of demonstrating students in downtown Fallujah.
Months later it was a blood-soaked no-go area ruled by terrorists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, known for beheadings and slaughter.
Four Americans working for a security company were murdered in March last year, dismembered and had their corpses hanged from one of Fallujah's bridges over the Euphrates.
A US marine-led assault on Fallujah took deadly revenge with air and artillery bombardments causing a mass exodus.
NOW the city is a shocking carcass of its former self, its streets littered with flattened houses, their contents squashed between the roof and the floor and spewing into gardens.
There are bomb craters, pylons twisted into impossible shapes and rubble everywhere.
One in ten of Fallujah's 600 ornate mosques were flattened in Operation Phantom Fury and the population has halved from 400,000.
We entered the city yesterday in an armoured US Marine convoy to watch Fallujah go to the polls and saw almost 45 per cent of those registered to vote turn up to election booths.
Local officials later claimed turnout had touched 70 per cent. A quiet tension fell over watching Iraqis as we were left to walk the 300 yards between US marines, legally bound to stay away from the polling booths, to our AK47 toting Iraqi Police escorts.Iraq's most dangerous city is totally locked down, surrounded by 4,500 troops from the US Regimental Combat Team and IPS checkpoints. Nobody goes or leaves without being almost forensically searched.
More than 200 Marines have died in this area along with 10,000 Iraqis and foreign fighters in 12 months of vicious battles. Most Marines in Camp Fallujah believe they are making progress, but remain quietly cynical.
Scrawled on a male toilet wall in the camp is the message: "Fighting for freedom is a bit like f*****g for virginity." But yesterday, desperate to avoid being marginalised by the Shia majority who have gained huge power in Iraq's parliament, thousands of Fallujan Sunnis shifted from bullet to ballot box.
They all want to vote out Premier Ibrahim al-Jaafari, whose Shia-led Ministry of The Interior has been accused of encouraging abduction, torture and murder or Sunni prisoners.
Many locals support the reinstatement of Iyad Allawi whose ousted government pumped pounds 125million into rebuilding Fallujah before being ousted by Shia majority voters.
As we entered one polling station, a fat scruffy man pointed at Marines and mimed firing a grenade at them, saying "boom."
It is impossible to get to the truth in Fallujah. Witness the comments of Police chief Brigadier General Salah al-Ani, a Sunni from Baghdad brought in to clean up the city.
HE ridiculed reports of pre-election violence the night we heard several explosions - insisting there was no trouble or insurgents.
Asked how many of his officers had been killed in recent months he shrugged and said 11.
The 47-year-old father-of-five then admitted he has survived five attempts to kill him this year, the last 20 days ago.
And after polls closed in the city small firefights broke out, despite a ban on weapons.
Undeterred by scattered violence, Iraqis voted in big numbers. Turnout was 67 per cent, against 58 per cent in January for the interim assembly.
Two people died in mortar attacks in Mosul and Tal Afar in the north and three, including a US marine, were wounded when a mortar round landed in Baghdad's Green Zone.
But the largely peaceful vote will raise US hopes a stable government can pave the way for its troops to quit.
CAPTION(S):
DECISION: Women vote yesterday at Az Zubayr, southern Iraq; POLL POSITION: Chris Hughes watches Fallujah election
My edgy election day.. in Guerilla Central; AS IRAQ GOES TO THE POLLS..THE MIRROR GOES TO FALLUJAH.(News)
Byline: From CHRIS HUGHES Security Correspondent in Fallujah
TENSION permeates every battle-scarred inch of Fallujah as locals emerge from the ruins to make a last ditch bid for a stake in Iraq's future.
The city known as "Guerilla Central" is on a knife-edge as its hard-line Sunni rebel community waits to see if yesterday's elections will give them a foothold in the struggle for power in Central Iraq.
Beyond the besieged city, Iraq is teetering towards civil war and watching carefully to see what happens in Fallujah - violent heartland of insurgency.
As one American diplomat said: "Judgments about whether this election will make or break this insurgency are premature as are judgments that we are at civil war."
It has been more than two and a half years since the Daily Mirror witnessed and reported exclusively on the April 2003 shooting by US Marines of demonstrating students in downtown Fallujah.
Months later it was a blood-soaked no-go area ruled by terrorists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, known for beheadings and slaughter.
Four Americans working for a security company were murdered in March last year, dismembered and had their corpses hanged from one of Fallujah's bridges over the Euphrates.
A US marine-led assault on Fallujah took deadly revenge with air and artillery bombardments causing a mass exodus.
NOW the city is a shocking carcass of its former self, its streets littered with flattened houses, their contents squashed between the roof and the floor and spewing into gardens.
There are bomb craters, pylons twisted into impossible shapes and rubble everywhere.
One in ten of Fallujah's 600 ornate mosques were flattened in Operation Phantom Fury and the population has halved from 400,000.
We entered the city yesterday in an armoured US Marine convoy to watch Fallujah go to the polls and saw almost 45 per cent of those registered to vote turn up to election booths.
Local officials later claimed turnout had touched 70 per cent. A quiet tension fell over watching Iraqis as we were left to walk the 300 yards between US marines, legally bound to stay away from the polling booths, to our AK47 toting Iraqi Police escorts.Iraq's most dangerous city is totally locked down, surrounded by 4,500 troops from the US Regimental Combat Team and IPS checkpoints. Nobody goes or leaves without being almost forensically searched.
More than 200 Marines have died in this area along with 10,000 Iraqis and foreign fighters in 12 months of vicious battles. Most Marines in Camp Fallujah believe they are making progress, but remain quietly cynical.
Scrawled on a male toilet wall in the camp is the message: "Fighting for freedom is a bit like f*****g for virginity." But yesterday, desperate to avoid being marginalised by the Shia majority who have gained huge power in Iraq's parliament, thousands of Fallujan Sunnis shifted from bullet to ballot box.
They all want to vote out Premier Ibrahim al-Jaafari, whose Shia-led Ministry of The Interior has been accused of encouraging abduction, torture and murder or Sunni prisoners.
Many locals support the reinstatement of Iyad Allawi whose ousted government pumped pounds 125million into rebuilding Fallujah before being ousted by Shia majority voters.
As we entered one polling station, a fat scruffy man pointed at Marines and mimed firing a grenade at them, saying "boom."
It is impossible to get to the truth in Fallujah. Witness the comments of Police chief Brigadier General Salah al-Ani, a Sunni from Baghdad brought in to clean up the city.
HE ridiculed reports of pre-election violence the night we heard several explosions - insisting there was no trouble or insurgents.
Asked how many of his officers had been killed in recent months he shrugged and said 11.
The 47-year-old father-of-five then admitted he has survived five attempts to kill him this year, the last 20 days ago.
And after polls closed in the city small firefights broke out, despite a ban on weapons.
Undeterred by scattered violence, Iraqis voted in big numbers. Turnout was 67 per cent, against 58 per cent in January for the interim assembly.
Two people died in mortar attacks in Mosul and Tal Afar in the north and three, including a US marine, were wounded when a mortar round landed in Baghdad's Green Zone.
But the largely peaceful vote will raise US hopes a stable government can pave the way for its troops to quit.
CAPTION(S):
DECISION: Women vote yesterday at Az Zubayr, southern Iraq; POLL POSITION: Chris Hughes watches Fallujah election
