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FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. warplanes unleashed devastating airstrikes on an suspected hideout where operatives from an al-Qaida-linked group were meeting Monday, and hospital officials said 20 people died.
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One strike hit an ambulance as it sped away with wounded, a hospital official said; the U.S. military said innocent lives were spared.
Also Monday, a video posted on a Web site in the name of the militants - led by Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - purportedly showed the beheading of a kidnapped Turkish truck driver. Al-Zarqawi is blamed for a string of terrorist attacks in Iraq, including bombings and the slayings of other hostages. Washington has a $10 million bounty on his head.
The U.S. military said jets carried out the strike on a site in Fallujah where several members of a group led by al-Zarqawi were meeting. It was at least the fifth airstrike in the past week on the city, indicating the high priority U.S. officials place on destroying al-Zarqawi’s group.
Warplanes hit the city west of Baghdad after “intelligence sources reported the presence of several al-Zarqawi operatives who have been responsible for numerous terrorist attacks against Iraqi civilians, Iraqi Security Forces and multinational forces,” the military said in a statement.
“Intelligence reports indicated that only Zarqawi operatives and associates were at the meeting location at the time of the strike,” the statement said. “Based on analysis of these reports, Iraqi Security Forces and multinational forces effectively and accurately targeted these terrorists while protecting the lives of innocent civilians.”
The military said reports indicated the strikes had achieved their aim but did not name the operatives. “This strike further erodes the capability of the Zarqawi network and increases safety and security throughout Iraq,” the military statement said.
The airstrike, which wrecked houses and hurled furniture into trees, sent a huge brown cloud over the residential al-Shurta neighborhood.
Witnesses said one explosion went off in a market as sellers were setting up their stalls, wounding several people and shattering windows. An ambulance was struck while rushing from the area, killing the paramedic driver and five wounded patients, hospital official Hamid Salaman said.
Ambulance bombed?
Dr. Ahmad Taher of the Fallujah General Hospital said at least 20 people were killed, including women and children, and 29 others wounded.
“The conditions here are miserable - an ambulance was bombed, three houses destroyed and men and women killed,” the hospital’s director, Rafayi Hayad al-Esawi, told pan-Arab Al-Jazeera television by telephone. “The American army has no morals.”
The hospital was overwhelmed with the wounded, its white sheets soiled with blood.
One woman who went to the hospital hysterically pulled at her hair. “I lost my son!,” she screamed between sobs. “I wish it were me.”
Attack at sunrise
Witnesses said U.S. warplanes repeatedly swooped low over the city and that artillery units deployed on the outskirts of the city also opened fire. The explosions started at sunrise and continued for several hours.
One explosion went off in a marketplace in Fallujah as the first vendors began to set up their stalls, wounding several people and shattering windows, witnesses said.
Iraqi witnesses said the market, homes and the ambulance were hit.
“We did not hit a marketplace,” said Maj. Jay Antonelli in a statement, but there was no immediate comment on the accusation that an ambulance was hit.
U.S. forces pulled out of Fallujah in April after ending a three-week siege that left hundreds dead. The U.S. Marines have not patrolled inside Fallujah since then, and Sunni Muslim insurgents have strengthened their hold on the city.
Police station destroyed
West of Baghdad, assailants broke into a local police station in Latifiyah and forced the handful of officers inside to leave before blowing up the building, police said Monday.
Nobody was injured in the Sunday night blast, said police Lt. Col. Sahi Abdullah. Iraqi police have regularly been attacked by insurgents who view them as collaborators with American troops.
In a visit to the southern city of Basra, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi vowed to pursue insurgents.
“We are adamant that we are going to defeat terrorism,” Allawi said. “We intend to confront them and bring them to justice.”
Interim president vows to meet date
Iraq’s interim president vowed Monday that the country’s leaders will ensure elections scheduled for January take place as planned, despite persistent violence.
“By God, we intend to meet this date,” Ghazi al-Yawer said during a visit to Warsaw, Poland, adding that the interim government was “working around the clock” to establish the security and government control needed for elections to be held.
On Sunday, insurgents hit Baghdad with mortar and rocket fire, heralding a day of violence.
At least 37 people were killed in Baghdad alone Sunday. Many of them died when a U.S. helicopter fired on a disabled U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle as Iraqis swarmed around it, cheering, throwing stones and waving the black and yellow sunburst banner of Iraq’s most-feared insurgent organization.
Arab television reporter killed
The dead from the Sunday helicopter strike included Arab television reporter Mazen al-Tumeizi. An Iraqi cameraman working for the Reuters news agency and an Iraqi freelance photographer for Getty Images were wounded.
About 30 journalists on Monday demonstrated in the West Bank town of Ramallah to protest the death of al-Tumeizi, a Palestinian.
Naim Tubasi, chief of the Palestinian journalists’ union, accused the United States of deliberately killing reporters in Iraq to “block the truth” from reaching the rest of the world.
“The killing of Mazen al-Tumeizi is one more American crime in Iraq,” he said, calling for an international investigation of American crimes against journalists in Iraq.
Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged that the U.S.-led coalition faced a “difficult time” in Iraq but said the United States had a plan to quash the insurgency and bring those areas under control in time for national elections in January.
The insurgency “will be brought under control,” Powell said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “It’s not an impossible task.”
Governor escapes assassination try
Elsewhere, the governor of the northern Kurdish province of Dahuk escaped an assassination attempt when a roadside bomb went off as his car was passing by, police said. There were no injuries.
Gov Netshevan Ahmad was on his way to work in Dahuk when the device exploded, said police Col. Mohammed Doski. Nobody was injured in the attack.
It was the first such attack in the largely peaceful city of Dahuk and surrounding province that bears the same name since the U.S. invasion in Iraq began in March last year.
On the Iraqi political front, a government official announced Monday that Minister of State Qassim Dawoud has been designated as an adviser to the prime minister for national security, a government official said Monday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Cabinet shifted Dawoud’s responsibility from minister of state for military affairs to minister of state for national security and an adviser to Allawi.
The move is likely to encroach on the political turf of Iraq’s national security adviser, Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie, and Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, whose responsibilities also include national security affairs. It was unclear how the three would coordinate their jobs.
Dawoud went on television last week to announce the capture of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein’s deputy, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, only to see the claim proved untrue.
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One strike hit an ambulance as it sped away with wounded, a hospital official said; the U.S. military said innocent lives were spared.
Also Monday, a video posted on a Web site in the name of the militants - led by Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - purportedly showed the beheading of a kidnapped Turkish truck driver. Al-Zarqawi is blamed for a string of terrorist attacks in Iraq, including bombings and the slayings of other hostages. Washington has a $10 million bounty on his head.
The U.S. military said jets carried out the strike on a site in Fallujah where several members of a group led by al-Zarqawi were meeting. It was at least the fifth airstrike in the past week on the city, indicating the high priority U.S. officials place on destroying al-Zarqawi’s group.
Warplanes hit the city west of Baghdad after “intelligence sources reported the presence of several al-Zarqawi operatives who have been responsible for numerous terrorist attacks against Iraqi civilians, Iraqi Security Forces and multinational forces,” the military said in a statement.
“Intelligence reports indicated that only Zarqawi operatives and associates were at the meeting location at the time of the strike,” the statement said. “Based on analysis of these reports, Iraqi Security Forces and multinational forces effectively and accurately targeted these terrorists while protecting the lives of innocent civilians.”
The military said reports indicated the strikes had achieved their aim but did not name the operatives. “This strike further erodes the capability of the Zarqawi network and increases safety and security throughout Iraq,” the military statement said.
The airstrike, which wrecked houses and hurled furniture into trees, sent a huge brown cloud over the residential al-Shurta neighborhood.
Witnesses said one explosion went off in a market as sellers were setting up their stalls, wounding several people and shattering windows. An ambulance was struck while rushing from the area, killing the paramedic driver and five wounded patients, hospital official Hamid Salaman said.
Ambulance bombed?
Dr. Ahmad Taher of the Fallujah General Hospital said at least 20 people were killed, including women and children, and 29 others wounded.
“The conditions here are miserable - an ambulance was bombed, three houses destroyed and men and women killed,” the hospital’s director, Rafayi Hayad al-Esawi, told pan-Arab Al-Jazeera television by telephone. “The American army has no morals.”
The hospital was overwhelmed with the wounded, its white sheets soiled with blood.
One woman who went to the hospital hysterically pulled at her hair. “I lost my son!,” she screamed between sobs. “I wish it were me.”
Attack at sunrise
Witnesses said U.S. warplanes repeatedly swooped low over the city and that artillery units deployed on the outskirts of the city also opened fire. The explosions started at sunrise and continued for several hours.
One explosion went off in a marketplace in Fallujah as the first vendors began to set up their stalls, wounding several people and shattering windows, witnesses said.
Iraqi witnesses said the market, homes and the ambulance were hit.
“We did not hit a marketplace,” said Maj. Jay Antonelli in a statement, but there was no immediate comment on the accusation that an ambulance was hit.
U.S. forces pulled out of Fallujah in April after ending a three-week siege that left hundreds dead. The U.S. Marines have not patrolled inside Fallujah since then, and Sunni Muslim insurgents have strengthened their hold on the city.
Police station destroyed
West of Baghdad, assailants broke into a local police station in Latifiyah and forced the handful of officers inside to leave before blowing up the building, police said Monday.
Nobody was injured in the Sunday night blast, said police Lt. Col. Sahi Abdullah. Iraqi police have regularly been attacked by insurgents who view them as collaborators with American troops.
In a visit to the southern city of Basra, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi vowed to pursue insurgents.
“We are adamant that we are going to defeat terrorism,” Allawi said. “We intend to confront them and bring them to justice.”
Interim president vows to meet date
Iraq’s interim president vowed Monday that the country’s leaders will ensure elections scheduled for January take place as planned, despite persistent violence.
“By God, we intend to meet this date,” Ghazi al-Yawer said during a visit to Warsaw, Poland, adding that the interim government was “working around the clock” to establish the security and government control needed for elections to be held.
On Sunday, insurgents hit Baghdad with mortar and rocket fire, heralding a day of violence.
At least 37 people were killed in Baghdad alone Sunday. Many of them died when a U.S. helicopter fired on a disabled U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle as Iraqis swarmed around it, cheering, throwing stones and waving the black and yellow sunburst banner of Iraq’s most-feared insurgent organization.
Arab television reporter killed
The dead from the Sunday helicopter strike included Arab television reporter Mazen al-Tumeizi. An Iraqi cameraman working for the Reuters news agency and an Iraqi freelance photographer for Getty Images were wounded.
About 30 journalists on Monday demonstrated in the West Bank town of Ramallah to protest the death of al-Tumeizi, a Palestinian.
Naim Tubasi, chief of the Palestinian journalists’ union, accused the United States of deliberately killing reporters in Iraq to “block the truth” from reaching the rest of the world.
“The killing of Mazen al-Tumeizi is one more American crime in Iraq,” he said, calling for an international investigation of American crimes against journalists in Iraq.
Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged that the U.S.-led coalition faced a “difficult time” in Iraq but said the United States had a plan to quash the insurgency and bring those areas under control in time for national elections in January.
The insurgency “will be brought under control,” Powell said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “It’s not an impossible task.”
Governor escapes assassination try
Elsewhere, the governor of the northern Kurdish province of Dahuk escaped an assassination attempt when a roadside bomb went off as his car was passing by, police said. There were no injuries.
Gov Netshevan Ahmad was on his way to work in Dahuk when the device exploded, said police Col. Mohammed Doski. Nobody was injured in the attack.
It was the first such attack in the largely peaceful city of Dahuk and surrounding province that bears the same name since the U.S. invasion in Iraq began in March last year.
On the Iraqi political front, a government official announced Monday that Minister of State Qassim Dawoud has been designated as an adviser to the prime minister for national security, a government official said Monday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Cabinet shifted Dawoud’s responsibility from minister of state for military affairs to minister of state for national security and an adviser to Allawi.
The move is likely to encroach on the political turf of Iraq’s national security adviser, Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie, and Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, whose responsibilities also include national security affairs. It was unclear how the three would coordinate their jobs.
Dawoud went on television last week to announce the capture of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein’s deputy, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, only to see the claim proved untrue.
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i love brittany=)