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US defends deadly Iraqi air strike
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-06-20 09:35
US forces have killed 22 people in an air strike on what they say was a safe
house linked to al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the Iraqi city of
Falluja.
US military officers said there was no sign Zarqawi himself -- who has a
US$10 million (5.4 million pound) price on his head -- was in the house when it
was destroyed. Furious Iraqis said the dead included women and children.
Residents of a
Fallujah, Iraq neighborhood
comb through the wreckage of their homes which were destroyed in a US
airstrike Saturday June 19, 2004. [Reuters.[AP]
| Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said in Baghdad
the house was being used by fighters loyal to Zarqawi, accused by Washington of
leading a bloody campaign of suicide bombings and of decapitating a US hostage
last month.
"We have significant evidence that there were members of the Zarqawi network
in the house," Kimmitt said on Saturday.
"Today coalition forces conducted a strike on a known Zarqawi safe house in
southwest Falluja based on multiple confirmations of actionable
intelligence."
Zarqawi is portrayed by the Americans as a key figure in al Qaeda attacks
destabilising the country at a critical time before a US-led coalition formally
hand sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government on June 30.
Pro-American authorities in neighbouring Saudi Arabia said they had killed al
Qaeda's leader in the kingdom, Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, and three other prominent
militants.
The Saudi operation came hours after the group carried out its threat to
behead US hostage Paul Johnson on Friday.
Residents of Falluja said two missiles had been fired at the house by a US
plane on Saturday morning, flattening the building. Kimmitt said the US strike
had caused secondary blasts as ammunition inside the house exploded.
"An American plane hit this house and three others were damaged. Only body
parts are left," a witness said, as rescuers dug through the rubble of the
shattered house for survivors.
"They brought us 22 corpses, children, women and youth," Ahmed Hassan, a
cemetery worker, said after the blast.
Zarqawi 'mastermind'
Last month, Marines killed around 40 Iraqis in an attack on a house in the
western desert near the Syrian border. The US military said the house was a
staging point for foreign fighters but survivors said a wedding party had been
massacred.
Washington says Jordanian-born Zarqawi has been the mastermind behind a
series of bloody suicide attacks in Iraq that have sown chaos and claimed
hundreds of lives. It says he was also the man shown beheading US hostage
Nicholas Berg in a grisly video posted on the Internet last month.
Zarqawi's group claimed responsibility for the assassination of Iraq's
Governing Council leader, Izzedin Salim, on May 17. The most recent attack
claimed by the group was last Monday's suicide car bombing in Baghdad that
killed 13 people.
US commanders say pacifying restive Falluja is crucial for stability ahead of
the formal handover of sovereignty.
Hundreds of Iraqis were killed in the city in April in fighting between US
Marines and guerrillas, sparking outrage in Iraq. The US military agreed a truce
and handed responsibility for security to an Iraqi force that includes many
former officers in Saddam Hussein's armed forces.
Guerrillas bent on disrupting this month's handover of sovereignty brought
Iraq's crucial oil exports to a halt this week with attacks on two key southern
pipelines.
On Saturday, a roadside bomb targeted foreign workers on a road southwest of
Basra. Police said a Portuguese civilian and an Iraqi policeman were killed, an
Indian and an Iraqi wounded.
Iraq has been unable to export any oil since the attacks.
An oil official said welders working in searing heat on the Faw peninsula
south of Basra had run into delays but might complete repairs to one of the
pipelines later on Saturday.
The US military reported the deaths of two more American soldiers, bringing
to 614 the total killed in action since last year's invasion of Iraq to topple
Saddam Hussein.
In Beirut, a Foreign Ministry source said kidnappers in Iraq freed the last
Lebanese hostage who was seized last weekend. The source said George Frando was
in good health.
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