Recent works by Matthew McAllester

REPORTING FROM LONDON

Detainee suspected in massacre

LONDON - When federal agents conducted their nationwide sweep last week of men believed to have been soldiers and police officers in the Bosnian Serb units that perpetrated the Srebrenica massacre, one name stood out among the 26 arrested: Nedjo Ikonic.

Two histories hidden in the workforce

Dusty Rhodes has a strict rule for the roughly 30 Bosnians working for him: no arguing or fighting among Muslims, Serbs and Croats over what happened in the wars of the former Yugoslavia.

Former Bosnian Serb soldiers arrested

Federal agents raided homes in five cities Monday, arresting 19 Bosnian Serbs whose units allegedly participated in the Bosnian war's Srebrenica massacre, sources told Newsday.

U.S. torture statute put to the test

For 12 years the U.S. federal Torture Statute lay unused. Wednesday, federal prosecutors finally unleashed it.

REPORTING FROM TURKEY

Muslim fears eased by pope

ISTANBUL, Turkey - In a dramatic gesture of reconciliation with the Muslim faith he had so recently offended, Pope Benedict XVI prayed inside Istanbul's Blue Mosque yesterday.

REPORTING FROM TURKEY

Silence in Turkey's genocide controversy

Mesrob II, the Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul and all Turkey, was silent for a second.

A small Turkish flock for pope

ISTANBUL, Turkey - After spending his first day in Turkey doing his best to reconcile with Islam, Pope Benedict XVI spent his second of four days in the country connecting with the tiny Christian population here.

Refusal to acknowledge Armenian genocide

Mesrob II, the Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul and all Turkey, was silent for a second.

Pope tries to smooth relations in Turkey

Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Turkey Tuesday and immediately began a charm offensive directed at Muslims and Turks angered by comments he made about Islam 10 weeks ago.

War crimes suspect sent back to Bosnia

ISTANBUL, Turkey - This time last year Mladen Blagojevic was living in his neatly tended ranch home in the sprawl of Phoenix with his wife and young son. This week, he's in his homeland of Bosnia - sitting in a cell and facing the prospect of being charged with war crimes, his life in the safety of American suburbia over.

REPORTING FROM LEBANON

Finding heartache amid the rubble

Someone found a few bottles of cologne. The rescue workers - not that there was anyone they could rescue alive - threw some on the ground, poured some on the trapped bodies and sprayed each other's face masks.

MIDEAST CRISIS

Dead expatriate's sister grieves in L.A.

The body was among the furniture on the floor of the living room. It was Mohammed Hamoudi and he was an American citizen.

Defiance among Hezbollah

The Israelis had gone, and within hours, Hezbollah was back in control.

REPORT FROM LEBANON

Fierce fighting in the final hours

It was the last full day of war - or so the politicians were saying - and it had left Ahmed Skafi with a sliced-up body and a dead friend.

A friendly rivalry 3,000 years ago

The kings of Tyre and Israel once battled it out in riddles, not bombs.

Peril on the streets

All but the crazy or the desperate are staying inside now or perhaps walking gingerly under awnings at the side of the road and in the narrow alleys of Tyre's old city. Yesterday and the night before, Israel delivered the message that any moving vehicle was now a target.

REPORTING FROM LEBANON

Amid the explosions, town's people depart

The staff at the Jabal Amel hospital mingled yesterday outside the emergency room, as they do all day at the moment, waiting for arrivals.

Witnessing the horrors of war

First came two explosions. They rang through the main street leading south into this ancient city. They came out of nowhere, perhaps from one of the Israeli drones buzzing in the skies.

Historic seaside town targeted

Israeli commandos crept through orchards of banana and orange trees early yesterday before raiding an apartment where Hezbollah fighters were storing weapons.

REPORTING FROM LEBANON

Strikes reach farther

Israel further isolated Lebanon's capital city Friday by destroying bridges on the main north-south highway - the last relatively safe main road out of Beirut to neighboring Syria. Hezbollah, meanwhile, launched its deepest rocket strike yet into Israel.

Israel vows to keep fighting

Israel's apologetic but defiant reaction to yesterday's events in the Lebanese town of Qana underscores the difference between this war and most Arab-Israeli conflicts waged during the past three decades: In the minds of many Israelis, their country's very existence is now at stake.

REPORTING FROM ISRAEL

Threat of attack quiets Israeli vacation spot

To drive into northern Israel is to enter a land that becomes stranger and stranger with each passing mile.

From exile, he's eager to fight

Six years ago, Fouad spent his days in southern Lebanon fighting the guerrillas of Hezbollah. Now, he spends his nights finding cover from their rockets in an underground bomb shelter in this northern Israeli town, a Lebanese Shia Muslim living in exile in Israel and wishing he were back fighting his old enemy face to face.

Heavy fighting exacts Israeli toll

Israel's attack on Lebanon turned costly for the Israeli army yesterday when Hezbollah guerrillas killed at least eight soldiers in fierce fighting in a town less than 3 miles inside Lebanon. At least 22 more soldiers were injured in what Israeli officers described as intense combat in the Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbeil.

As history repeats, unwilling to be driven out

The scars on Shimon Biton's body, still hurting after 36 years, tell him to stay.

REPORTING FROM GAZA

What went wrong? No simple answers

Like a hyena picking over the last, dry bones of a carcass, Mohammed Silme was still trying to extract scrap metal from the rubble of what was the Israeli settlement of Kfar Darom.

Palestinians grieve deaths of civilians

Once Ayman Hajaj shook off the initial shock of the explosion in his family's garden, he looked at where his mother, sister and brother had been sitting.

REPORTING FROM GAZA

Picking up the pieces in Gaza

Every day of his life, Mahmoud Ankar wears a T-shirt or sweatshirt with his name and the telephone number of his parents printed on the front. "Anyone who finds him please call," reads the rest of the message.

Israeli hints at deal

As Israel's military continued its attack on Palestinian neighborhoods in northern Gaza Friday, its minister of public security said in a speech that Israel might be willing to release Palestinian prisoners if the kidnappers of an Israeli soldier set him free.

REPORTING FROM GAZA

Israelis push into Gaza

The Israeli military pushed into residential neighborhoods in the northern Gaza Strip yesterday, killing at least 21 Palestinians. One Israeli soldier was shot dead by a Palestinian fighter, the Israeli army said - the first Israeli to die in the offensive.

REPORTING FROM GAZA

Burying the dead comes down to numbers

Osama Tawil, funeral director to militants, learned his lesson during a battle in 2004: Make sure there are enough refrigerators to hold all the bodies until the fighting has died down.

Mubarak joins effort to free soldier

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak flew to Saudi Arabia yesterday in a bid to enlist King Abdullah in his efforts to solve the crisis over the kidnapped Israeli soldier.

REPORTING FROM GAZA

Militants give ultimatum

The deadline set by Palestinian kidnappers who had threatened to kill Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit expired yesterday with no word from either side.

REPORTING FROM GAZA

Fight within Hamas

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal is using the crisis over a kidnapped Israeli soldier to win an internal battle in Hamas, pushing it away from the political arena and back to armed struggle, Palestinian officials and leading figures have told Newsday.

Kidnapping holds echoes of the past

The kidnappers of the young Israeli soldier knew that his comrades would be searching for him, and that the end would come quickly if the Israelis found their safe house.

REPORTING FROM GAZA

Mediator works to free Israeli

While Israel continued to target sites in Gaza with shelling and missiles Friday, hope for a solution to the crisis shifted to Syria as the Egyptian intelligence chief worked to persuade the leader of Hamas to order the release of a kidnapped Israeli soldier.

REPORTING FROM GAZA

A militant’s final deadly mission

Three or four weeks before he died, Hamed Rantisi's mother recalled yesterday, the 20-year-old started leaving the house at about 5 in the morning, claiming he had a new job selling clothes in the local market.

Putting the heat on

Israel continued its campaign to secure the release of a kidnapped soldier yesterday, firing missiles at two targets in Gaza and arresting 64 Hamas legislators and cabinet ministers.

Israel on attack

Israel sent thousands of ground troops and fired artillery shells into Palestinian territory yesterday, stepping up pressure to secure the release of a soldier kidnapped Sunday by Palestinian militants.

REPORT FROM IRAQ

A renewed threat

The platoon of Kurdish fighters stood at attention in three lines, staring straight ahead in the direction of their homeland and their target: Turkey.

REPORTING FROM MONTENEGRO

People without a country

Bedri Shala has his reasons for not wanting to go home to Kosovo.

MATTHEW MCALLESTER FROM MONTENEGRO

Serbia loses dream of greatness

The news that Montenegro had broken away from Serbia made the young Serbian nationalist leader physically sick.

Near independence

The people of Montenegro appeared to say yes yesterday to independence, no to remaining ties to Serbia and good-bye forever to the ghost of Yugoslavia.

On tourism's heels, a country may be born

On the rippling waters of the unspoiled Bay of Kotor sit the warships that make up what remains of the once-formidable Yugoslav navy. Many are docked in the repair facility in this quiet town of 15,000, but most likely not for much longer. They are being sold off, and millionaires' yachts are due to take their place.

REPORTING FROM NEPAL

Rebels' new challenge: Assessing loyalty

This time last week, the young Maoist guerrillas based in this village in southern Nepal were among the thousands expecting to take over the country within days or even hours.

Nepal's Maoists soften stance

In an overnight reversal of policy, Nepal's Maoist rebels announced yesterday they would lift the blockades that have created shortages of food, fuel and other supplies to the capital and other cities.

REPORTING FROM NEPAL

Signs of hope amid unrest

Hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators took to the streets of the capital yesterday to claim victory on the morning after King Gyanendra announced he would recall parliament.

REPORTING FROM NEPAL

Headway in Nepal

In a major concession to the pro-democracy protesters who have all but crippled his country, King Gyanendra agreed last night to reinstate the parliament he dissolved in 2002.

Prodding forces to shift loyalty

Every time trekking guide Santa Ghale has marched with thousands of other pro-democracy demonstrators toward police and army lines, he has wondered whether his brother is leveling his gun at him.

Newsday reporter wins 'Oz' award

The Asia Society has awarded its fourth Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Asian Journalism to Newsday reporter Matthew McAllester for his series entitled "Nepal: a country on the brink."

WAR CRIMINALS IN THE U.S.

A law awaits its first defendant

When federal investigators find foreign war crimes suspects living in the United States, there are two ways to go after them.

WAR CRIMINALS IN THE U.S.

From Nazi hunters to modern foes

For the past two and a half decades, historians and investigators in the tiny Office of Special Investigations in the Justice Department have been hunting Nazis.

WAR CRIMINALS IN THE U.S.

Sanctuary in the Sun

When the Muslim women and children needed to be separated from the men of Srebrenica so that the men could be executed, the Bratunac Brigade's military police platoon helped take the women and children away, senior Bosnian Serb commanders have testified in war crimes trials in The Hague.

ANONYMITY IN ARIZONA

A cycle of retaliation

Mladen Blagojevic's father walked through his muddy garden with a hammer in his left hand and a cigarette drooping from his lips. He wore an old military jacket, heavy black boots and a black woolen hat to keep Bosnia's piercing winter cold off his head.

WAR CRIMINALS IN THE U.S.

Elusive justice

There are only female voices to be heard in Emina Hidic's apartment. Her mother gasps and sobs as she tells her decade-old story of a place called Srebrenica. Hidic's 12-year-old daughter speaks quietly, sweetly. She has grown up in a family robbed of its men, in a home where sadness lingers like a permanent scent.

'Scratching the surface'

A thousand ongoing cases involving suspected foreign war criminals, torturers and human rights abusers living in the United States might seem a lot. But not to federal investigators and lawyers.

He escaped by pretending to be dead

Two Bosnian Muslims survived the massacre at Branjevo Military Farm, where Marko Boskic was one of the executioners. In 2000, one of the men testified in the trial of Bosnian Serb Gen. Radislav Krstic, who was later convicted of aiding and abetting genocide

Hamas campaigns in private after ban on public electioneering

If it can't campaign like the rest of the Palestinian parties, Hamas will campaign in secret.

REPORT FROM ISRAEL

A farm-grown leadership

Behind the sandstone walls, down a narrow road from a two-lane highway cutting through Israel's sprawling urban coastal Plain of Sharon is hidden a man-made oasis of orange groves, avocado trees and sheep pens. This is Kfar Malal, a cooperative farm that was a malarial wasteland before Jewish pioneers began working it in the early years of last century.

REPORTING FROM JERUSALEM

Sharon's doctors wait, watch

Doctors tending to the ailing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will meet this morning to discuss when his anesthetic should be reduced, allowing them an opportunity to gauge possible damage to his brain.

REPORTING FROM ISRAEL

Concern amid their dislike

If any Israelis have reason to wish their prime minister ill, it is the people of Nitzan.

Sharon has more surgery

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's condition improved Friday after he underwent a second operation on his brain, said the director of the hospital outside Jerusalem where he is being treated.

ARIEL SHARON: A LEADER INCAPACITATED

A void in Israel

Doctors will keep Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in an induced coma for up to three days following major brain surgery to repair the "severe trauma" caused by his stroke on Wednesday night, a hospital official said yesterday.

Power of design

If France is searching for solutions to the urban problems that are at the root of two weeks of rioting, it might look to this suburb north of Paris and a huge housing project named La Caravelle.

REPORT FROM FRANCE

Their shattered dreams

Standing at her old gas stove, Tonkhonte Traore was preparing an evening meal of steak, sauce and her son Bouna's favorite dish of dumplings. It was just after 6 p.m. on Oct. 27, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and the day's fasting was over.

'They don't listen to us'

Most times he's been in a police station, the young Frenchman of Algerian descent recalled, it has been in handcuffs. So it felt particularly good to wreck and torch the local police office last week.

Suspect unapologetic to end

The sallow skin on Nebojsa Minic's semi-paralyzed, skull-like face was tight and smooth over cheekbones, chin and the empty valleys of once-full cheeks. The Serb's large ears flopped against the hospital pillow like empty socks. You could have put your hand around his once-powerful, tattooed legs and almost touched thumb to finger. To make himself understood, he would nod or shake his head slightly. But even as the rest of his body was dying, the blue eyes of the man who in the Kosovo war of 1999 allegedly terrorized the town of Pec were still alive.

Israel turns to West Bank

Israel may be pulling down homes and ending its 38-year occupation of the Gaza Strip, but here in the West Bank, building is booming and the country's grip on the contested territory is tightening.

Last settlements emptied but beliefs remain full

The last Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip emptied yesterday with dignity and sorrow, not the fury that marked the end of some other settlements.

And then there were 4 in Gaza

GADID, Gaza Strip - Israeli soldiers and police cleared one more settlement in Gaza Friday, leaving just four with any substantial settler presence left to evacuate. Then, they paused for the Jewish Sabbath.

Holdouts find no sanctuary

NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip - Israeli soldiers and police yesterday stormed two synagogues that had become bastions of resistance to withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, then dragged out their countrymen in rough and emotional confrontations.

THE GAZA EVICTIONS

Militants not appeased

Kamal Taleb Nassar sat in his family's meeting hall and, in order of their deaths, proudly intoned the names of relatives who have died in the service of the militant Palestinian group Hamas.

No eviction for her pain

The settlers of Neve Dekalim cried yesterday because they are leaving their homes, and the Israeli soldiers evicting them cried because they are forcing their fellow Jews from their homes.

NEPAL: A COUNTRY ON THE BRINK

Local militias add to Nepal’s deadly mix

Already caught in the war between Nepal's Maoist rebels and the king's often brutal army, many Nepalis now fear that a new, third armed force could be the most lethal: local militias that have behaved like vigilantes and could tip Nepal into chaos.

Sense of homecoming for Palestinians

It has never happened before. Palestinians are about to gain land from Israelis. And the wise man of Fundo Qawmiya will be one of the first.

Nepal

NEPAL A COUNTRY ON THE BRINK

Looking for word from those who VANISH without a trace

No, said the young journalist as he spoke through the metal grille in the prison visiting room, it was not being held in the central jail that caused him such fear. It was being let out that worried him.

Drawn into the arms of the MAOISTS

At 62, Juki Buda has already lived more years than most women of her generation in Nepal. Perhaps it's the hope for vengeance that keeps her alive.

An unsettling exodus for Gaza residents

On the white wall of what was the living room in the gutted three-bedroom house is a heart, drawn in black. "The Malach family lived here. 9-11-00. 11-8-05," reads the message inside the heart.

LONDON TERROR: THE OVERVIEW

Explosions were quick and deadly

The three bombs that exploded on London's subway system Thursday morning were all detonated within 50 seconds rather than 26 minutes as previously thought, British police said yesterday. Officials also said the bombs were made of high explosives and were not homemade.

LONDON TERROR: THE OVERVIEW

A city looks for its loved ones

Throughout this shaken city Friday, distraught wives, sisters, husbands and friends handed out hastily copied photographs of the missing. They pasted them on walls and lampposts and delivered them to hospital waiting rooms.

LONDON TERROR

Eyewitness accounts

John Maingay was looking over some papers at his desk in the British Medical Association building in central London yesterday morning when his phone rang.

Innocents lose in fight for Nepal

As the dead woman's relatives splashed water from the broad, olive-colored River Narayani onto the smooth rocks of her funeral pyre, the stones hissed and one cracked open. The fire had been burning for two hours and all that was visibly left of Renuka Barali at the end of the Hindu cremation ceremony was a single piece of bone.

Dozens killed in Nepal blast

In what appeared to be one of the deadliest attacks by Maoist insurgents in a 9-year-long civil war that has brought Nepal to the brink of collapse, a bomb erupted under a packed bus in the country's southern marshlands yesterday, killing at least 36 people, according to military officials and local news reports.

Blair posts historic win

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party won a third consecutive election victory last night, an unprecedented feat for Labor, but exit polls indicated that the British voters had delivered Blair a stern rap on the knuckles over the Iraq war by greatly reducing his parliamentary majority.

Germans, Brits spar over pope

Pope Benedict XVI's past membership in a Nazi youth organization has sparked a faceoff between British and German newspapers that has highlighted the deep sensitivities that run in Germany about World War II and the role of its now-aging citizens in that war.

This time, no mistaking white smoke

This time the smoke really was white.

Church's new era begins

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, who served for 20 years as John Paul II's guardian of orthodox theology, was elected by his fellow cardinals Tuesday to become the 265th pope and head of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics.

As simple (not) as black and white

A new pope already? On the first vote? The smoke coming out of the chimney was white against the graying evening sky.

Imperfect pasts to arise at conclave?

It is not on the level of the Watergate break-in, exactly, but it's also not what you'd expect from an election said to be guided by God.

Opus Dei has stake in new pope

Sure, Peter Bancroft said, he does use a small, cotton whip to lash his back or buttocks once a week (in private). And yes, most days he wears an abrasive metal chain around his thigh for a couple of hours that causes him discomfort but no lasting damage.

Papal front-runner emerges

As the last pope's tomb was opened to the public for the first time yesterday, the Italian media was full of speculation about who the next pope would be.

The Pope's disciples

Just as Karol Wojtyla came to Rome to study before taking up a post in his first parish in Poland, so thousands of hand-picked young seminary students and priests from all over the world come to Rome to continue their theological educations.

Pope John Paul II is laid to rest

They came to mourn his death and they came to celebrate his life. They cried and they applauded him during the simple but majestic ceremony.

POPE JOHN PAUL II

Reaching out to the Jews

If only Pope John Paul II had come earlier.

View from poland

A hope for one last return

The people of Poland want him back.

POPE JOHN PAUL II: HIS HOMETOWN

From small stage in Poland to world’s stage

The tiny theater was locked yesterday, its corridors empty. Everyone was outside, praying for the man who began his career as one of the world's most dramatic orators in this building.

Poland mourns death of their favorite son

The silence seemed unbroken by anything but the amplified voice of the priest offering Mass in the native language of Pope John Paul II.

For these GIs, combat's burden has extra weight

It was only in November that the men of the 3rd squad were young, quips of wit and dumb-luck fearlessness sparking from their mouths. An insurgent's rocket hit the roof of a building they were taking cover in, but a miracle beam in the ceiling saved their lives and they laughed and told stories as night fell, none of them even scratched by the fire and hot metal that had torn into two soldiers outside. In another house they had briefly occupied that week of the battle, one of them tried on a pair of red women's underwear and posed, a Cheshire cat for the camera.

Jaafari poised to become Iraqi PM

After a lunch of lamb and rice in the large house beside the Tigris River where Iraq's most powerful politicians were trying to decide who to nominate as prime minister, Hussein Shahristani took a walk outside with his old friend Ahmad Chalabi.

Iraqi Shias shift to mainstream

Gone are the black shirts. Now the bodyguards of Sadr City's imams are wearing pale yellow knock-off Christian Dior turtlenecks with the designer's logo stitched below their hearts.

Early results show Shias leading in Iraq

Iraqi election officials released a new, partial tally of votes Friday from last weekend's landmark elections, showing a Shiite coalition whose leaders have close ties to Iran continuing to roll up a strong lead over other tickets, including that of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

Iraqis face danger to turn out at polls

Even with his left leg broken and pieces of shrapnel embedded in his head and arms by the explosives of the suicide bomber who prevented him from voting on Sunday morning, Salah al-Salman still wanted to make sure his mother went to the polls.

The vote: 8 million strong

Millions of Iraqis walked from their homes to polling stations yesterday, through veils of fear and violence, to cast votes in an election that during the decades of Saddam Hussein's totalitarian regime could have been nothing more than a fantasy.

Kurds, Shia cast grateful votes

The long wait was over. After decades of being, at best, second-class citizens of a country dominated by a Sunni Arab minority, Iraq's Shia Muslims and Kurds used the ballot box to stamp their ambitions on their country.

Saddam Hussein can't vote

Saddam Hussein will not be voting Sunday.

2 die, 5 hurt in attack on U.S. Embassy

In an unprecedentedly successful attack that occurred only hours before polls were due to open in Iraq's first free elections, Iraqi insurgents fired a rocket last night at a building in the U.S. Embassy compound, killing two Americans and wounding five others.

Iraqis prepare for runup to vote

It is more like the buildup to a war than preparations for an election.

Times change in Tikrit

Etched into the pastel plasterwork, high above the men sitting around a huge conference table, were the Arabic initials of Saddam Hussein, the man whose home this was two years ago. The cavernous room was inside one of the 19 vast palaces the now-imprisoned leader built for himself in his hometown.

Politics is no idle chat

On the Internet, no one knows you're a Kurd. No one knows you're Shia or Sunni. No one knows your name or where you live. And in Iraq, that means no one can kill you or threaten you with any realistic menace for expressing a political opinion.

CAMPAIGN OF FEAR

Insurgents mark commission workers for death in attempt to undermine Iraq's historic elections

On a sheet of plain white paper, the message was neatly printed in 12-point type and threaded during the night through the metal grille of Abu Ahmed's front door. In the morning, about 6 a.m., his parents found it, read it, dialed their son's mobile phone and begged him to come home immediately.

CLOUD OF LEGITIMACY HANGS OVER IRAQ ELECTIONS

Feared boycott by Sunni minority could be bump in road to establishing political structure

Seven days from now, elementary school teacher Iyad Ibrahim will have his first ever chance to vote freely in an election for a candidate of his choosing.

Band of brothers

FALLUJAH, Iraq - When the fighting began, the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry was the tool that punched the hole in Fallujah.

The hunt for an enemy in Fallujah

A crescent moon appeared between the gray clouds that hung over Fallujah early yesterday and from across the fields came the sound of music.

Driving toward the heart of the enemy

Night fell and the main attack began.

Long-planned attack begins

FALLUJAH, Iraq - American and Iraqi forces attacked the insurgent-held city of Fallujah last night in a bid to sweep the town of rebels and turn it over to the interim Iraqi government in the run-up to the country's scheduled first elections in January, American military commanders said.

TRAINING WITH U.S. MARINES

Iraqi troops prepare for Fallujah offensive

NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - The Bradley Fighting Vehicle roared and turned on its tracks. The Iraqi troops kept close, but not too close. No one got run over.

OFFENSIVE IN IRAQ

U.S. jets, artillery hit Fallujah

NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - American jets and artillery batteries launched attacks on the insurgent-held city of Fallujah yesterday, hitting targets in the run-up to what could be a major assault on the Sunni- dominated town.

FALLUJAH CONFLICT

Rebuilding a war-torn Iraqi city

NEAR FALLUJAH, IRAQ - Victory for the American-led forces: That's the almost guaranteed outcome of a likely military assault on the insurgent-held city of Fallujah. Peace in the town, as the American military venture in Iraq has shown time and again, could be trickier.

Allawi ties Fallujah strike to peace talks

Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi warned yesterday that he could be on the verge of ordering a military strike on the insurgent-controlled city of Fallujah if last-minute peace negotiations fail, as many American military officials expect.