US occupation forces wall off city of al-Fallujah from outside world at a cost of US$3 billion.

In a dispatch posted at 3:05pm Baghdad time Wednesday afternoon, the Yaqen News Agency reported that the US military has begun building a concrete wall around the city of al-Fallujah, 60km west of Baghdad, at the cost of US$3 billion.

Yaqen reported a source in the local puppet “al-Fallujah Governing Council” as saying that the US military had contracted with a local construction firm run by a businessman from al-Fallujah to build a concrete wall three meters high surrounding the city on all sides so that the occupation forces can seal it off from the outside world.

The source, who asked to remain anonymous, said that the local contractor has close relations with the American occupation authorities and was therefore able to secure a price tag of $3 billion for the project. Construction of the wall began on the northern side of al-Fallujah a week ago, the source added.

According to the contract, construction of the wall is expected to take six months and is to cut al-Fallujah off from its suburbs and from the rest of the world, giving the US occupation forces control over every one who enters and leaves the city by forcing them all to pass through tightly guarded crossing points.

Since the heavy fighting that raged in al-Fallujah in November 2004, the US Marines have imposed a system of identity badges on local residents and compelled them to present documentation proving that they are residents of al-Fallujah in order to be allowed to pass in or out of the city.

The US has already walled off numerous cities and, in some cases, districts of cities, in occupied Iraq, turning them into open air prisons in which all movement is closely monitored and all services and economic life can be turned on or shut down at will. The Sunni district of al-A‘zamiyah in Baghdad and the city of al-Hadithah, 280km northwest of Baghdad were walled off from the outside world several months ago
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$ 3 billion is a lot of money, it can be used to build dozens of school in Falujah, hospitals and social aid to poor people in Fallujah. Instead, what we see now is a repeat of Warsaw ghetto in WW II