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| Monday, 21 June 2004 |
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US strikes "al Qaeda safe house" in Iraq, 22 dead FALLUJA, Iraq, Sunday (Reuters) U.S. forces killed 22 people in an air strike on what they said was a safe house linked to al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the Iraqi city of Falluja on Saturday. U.S. military officers said there was no sign Zarqawi himself -- who has a $10 million price on his head -- was in the house when it was destroyed. Furious Iraqis said the dead included women and children. 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 U.S. hostage last month. "We have significant evidence that there were members of the Zarqawi network in the house," Kimmitt said. "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 U.S.-led coalition formally hand sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government on June 30. Residents of Falluja said two missiles had been fired at the house by a U.S. plane on Saturday morning, flattening the building. Kimmitt said the U.S. 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. Last month, Marines killed around 40 Iraqis in an attack on a house in the western desert near the Syrian border. The U.S. 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 U.S. 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. U.S. commanders say pacifying restive Falluja is crucial for stability ahead of the formal handover of sovereignty. |
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