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At least 14 killed in Fallujah air strikes

July 19, 2004

A US airstrike yesterday on a Fallujah neighbourhood previously targeted by US forces destroyed a house and killed 14 people, hospital and local officials said.

US officials declined to provide details of the strike, deferring to the Iraqi Defence Ministry, which had no immediate comment.

The strike was the sixth on the city since June 19. In previous strikes, the United States said it was targeting safehouses used by the network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant blamed for masterminding car bombings and other attacks in Iraq.

Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has promised more intense cooperation between local leaders and the Americans in rooting out terrorism and said after a July 5 airstrike in Fallujah that his government had provided the intelligence for the strike.

Explosions from the strike today rocked the city. Scores of people ran to the scene and dug through the wreckage looking for survivors. One witness said the house belonged to a "very poor family." Angry crowds gathered around the hit house, chanting "God is great."

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"We heard the sound of jet-fighters and then we heard four explosions in the house occupied by civilian residents," Lieutenant Saad Khalaf of the Fallujah Brigade, a defence force that guards the city.

Body parts were scattered around the scene; some were stacked and covered by a gray blanket.

The attack killed 14 people and injured three, according to Saad al-Amili, a Health Ministry official.

US Marines besieged Fallujah, a hotbed of resistance against US forces, for several weeks last northern spring and then handed over security to a new "Fallujah Brigade" made up of local residents and commanded by officers from Saddam's former army. Many of those who fought the Marines joined the brigade.

Over the past 15 months, militants have used car bombs, sabotage, kidnappings and other attacks to try to destabilise the country.

In response to demands made by militants holding a Filipino truck driver, Philippine leaders said today they would finish withdrawing troops from Iraq this week.

The pullout, engineered to save the life of Angelo de la Cruz, was scheduled to end as early as tomorrow, when the 22 remaining members of the humanitarian contingent were to make an "exit call" on the new Polish commander at their base south of Baghdad, Philippine Foreign Minister Delia Albert said.

"After the call, the remaining contingent will then proceed to Kuwait, and from there, return to Manila by commercial flight," Albert said.

The United States and Australia have sharply criticised the withdrawal, arguing that caving in to terrorists will only encourage more kidnappings and endanger other members of the US-led coalition in Iraq. Insurgents have taken dozens of hostages in hopes of accomplishing their goals.

In their continuing effort to quash the insurgency, US forces said today they had detained a senior commander of Saddam's elite Republican Guard, who was suspected of planning and financing attacks against Iraqis, Iraqi security forces and coalition troops.

Iraqi national guardsmen and coalition forces captured Sufyan Maher Hassan in a raid in Tikrit on Friday. He was being held at a local multinational force detention facility, said Major Neal O'Brien of the 1st Infantry Division.

Hassan was the Republican Guard commander responsible for units defending Baghdad during the war. A relative of former leader Saddam Hussein, Hassan was blamed for the quick fall of Baghdad.

In recent weeks, insurgents also have stepped up attacks on local officials and police, whom they view as collaborators with the US-led coalition forces.

Two car bombs targeting police exploded in the city of Tikrit today morning, killing two police officers and wounding five others, Iraqi authorities said.

Tikrit was Saddam's hometown and remains a hotbed of the violent resistance against US forces.

One car bomb exploded near Tikrit's Albu-Ajil police station, killing two police and wounding two others, according to Iraqi police Lieutenant Nabil Abdel-Hamid.

Another car bomb exploded near a police training centre, wounding three officers, according to Iraqi police Captain Louai Qahtan.

The violence today came a day after a suicide car bomber targeted Justice Minister Malik Dohan al-Hassan's convoy, killing five bodyguards but leaving him unharmed.

In a second suicide bombing yesterday, attackers hit the Iraqi National Guard headquarters in Mahmudiyah, 32 kilometres south of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding 47, hospital officials said.

Al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for both attacks, the latest in a series targeting high-level government officials. The bombings also seemed a deliberate effort by insurgents to mark the anniversary of the coup that brought Saddam Hussein's political party to power in 1968.

"There are people who want to stop the progress of democracy in this country," said US Army Colonel Michael Formica, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division's 2nd Brigade, who spoke to reporters at the scene of the attack on al-Hassan.

A wave of attacks hit Iraqi forces yesterday, including one that killed a police chief south of Baghdad and injured at least eight other police officers.

In other violence, a roadside bomb exploded yesterday as a US convoy passed in Beiji, about 145 kilometres south of the northern city of Mosul, killing one US soldier and wounding another, the US military said in a statement.

Allawi consulted with US forces yesterday about the strike, his office said.

"The multinational force asked Prime Minister Allawi for permission to launch strikes on some specific places where some terrorists were hiding," an official in Allawi's office said today. "Allawi gave his permission."