The political fallout from the invasion has also intensified. The influential Association of Muslim Scholars has officially called for a boycott of January’s elections in protest of the attack. The head of the group [Harith Dhari] said voting would not occur, “over the corpses of those killed in Fallujah.” The boycott came shortly after a leading Sunni political party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, pulled out of the interim Iraqi government.

Iraqi Resistance Captures Control of Ramadi
Elsewhere in Iraq, two U.S. soldiers were killed in Mosul. Meanwhile in Kirkuk, three people died after a car bomb exploded at an Iraqi National Guard camp. In Baghdad, the interim government has imposed a night-time curfew throughout the city for the first time in a year. Meanwhile in Ramadi, which the US had considered “pacified”, the Iraqi resistance has largely taken over the city. The US responded by bombing parts of Ramadi.