A correspondent from AP's counterpart in the Arab media, "loyal" to the lands of Islam, filed this report.


ALLUJAH, 14 Rabee' al-Awwal 1425 AH - Despite repeated fataawas that Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers "crush" the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people, a source close to the Syrian facilitators directing anti-occupation forces in this besieged Iraqi city say recent heavy casualties have caused them to postpone further operations until sufficient reinforcements can arrive.

Although the number of martyr casualties is seldom if ever mentioned in kufr news accounts, such as from the Associated Press and Reuters, and never as such in Arab reports, the source—who spoke on condition of anonymity—claims that at least 715 have been killed in last week's fighting alone, with about three times that many either wounded or captured.

These latest figures bring the total number of Jihaadists martyred in Iraq since the infidel-declared end of major combat operations, to 11,375. An estimated 30,000 more have been wounded.

Asked if he thought this increasing toll would further undermine the already fragile public support for the militant struggle, the same source said it would prove difficult. "Our fight against Satan's U.S. troops is looking more and more like another Kuwait," he said, referring to the 1991 forced expulsion of President Saddam Hussein's military from the former Iraqi province following several disastrous engagements with the Americans.

In Jeddah, there was alarm expressed by several leading Jihaad opponents that the struggle against the pagans was becoming "untenable." Quoting from the April 10 fataawa issued by the imam at the Grand Mosque in Makkah, Sheikh Saud Al-Shuraim, a spokesman for the No Jihad In Anyone's Name group said, "While the imam points out how infidels 'want us to believe that destruction is reform, killing is life, disorder is order and injustice is justice,' it is our jihaadic aggression that is delaying their quick departure from Iraq and an end to the Coalition's presence there." He called on jihaadist leaders to stop accepting financial assistance for their movement from Iran because its rulers are "sworn enemies" of the Iraqi people.

The NJIAN spokesman went on to say that "the sooner we stop fighting, the sooner the foreigners will leave and let Iraq finish its recovery from decades of unprogressive rule by the Hussein Administration."

Former Sheikh Fazlul Rifa'i Hamzah, who himself has been the subject of three fataawas for leading the anti-Jihaad group "Resisting Evil People Lifts You," declared at a recent gathering of followers that the Iraqi jihaad movement was an attempt by Syrian- and Iranian-backed militants to weaken Iraq's post-occupation standing in the Arab world. "We know who stands to gain the most from the militant struggle, and it's not the people of Iraq," he said.

Meanwhile, the source said an attempted ambush by mostly Syrian-trained militants on U.S. Marines based in Tikrit went awry after the militants were spotted from the air by an unmanned surveillance drone. "Apparently the crusader-Zionist alliance's troops discovered our position and opened fire, leaving at least another 50 martyrs." That number could not be independently confirmed, and no casualties were reported on the Americans' side.

18:59 Makka Time, 15:59 GMT

	3:11 PM

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