Posted on 06/19/2004 8:34:25 AM PDT by kattracks
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — A U.S. military plane fired missiles Saturday into a residential neighborhood in Fallujah, killing at least 16 people and leveling houses there, police and residents said. A U.S. official said the target was a known hideout of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror network.It was the first significant U.S. military action in the city since Marines ended a bloody three-week siege against insurgents. Since the U.S. forces left, residents have said that extremist influence in the Sunni Muslim city, west of Baghdad, has only grown.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, coalition deputy operations chief, said the attack struck a known hideout of al-Zarqawi and that the blast caused "multiple secondary explosions" of ammunition and roadside bomb materials stored there. There was no way to confirm the U.S. claim.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said several members of the al-Zarqawi network were believed in the house at the time of the attack but they did not know if the terrorist mastermind himself was inside. The officials did not dispute Iraqi casualty figures.
Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born militant believed to have ties to al-Qaida, has been blamed for the string of car bombs across Iraq, including the Thursday that killed 35 people and wounded 145 at an Iraqi military recruiting center in Baghdad.
President George W. Bush has cited al-Zarqawi's presence in Iraq before the April 2003 collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime as evidence of contacts between al-Qaida and the former Iraqi regime.
Elsewhere, U.S. troops battled insurgents for a fourth day near the city of Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, in fighting that has killed at least six Iraqis and one American soldier, the U.S. military and witnesses said. In southern Iraq, a roadside bomb killed at least two people, including a Portuguese security officer.
In the Fallujah strike, at least two houses were destroyed and six others were damaged in the poor neighborhood.
The Iraqi Health Ministry said 16 people were killed, though they expected the number to rise. Residents said 20 bodies — including at least three women and five children — were taken for immediate burial, in accordance with Islamic custom, while hospitals reported at least two more dead.
"At 9:30 a.m., a U.S. plane shot two missiles on this residential area," said the Fallujah police chief, Sabbar al-Janabi, as he surveyed the wreckage. "Scores were killed and injured. This picture speaks for itself."
In Fallujah, rescue workers combed the scene, searching the rubble for other victims. Slabs of concrete and steel reinforcing bars were upended and twisted, Associated Press Television News footage showed.
Water pooled from a 20-foot crater in front of one of the destroyed houses, apparently from where one of the missiles struck. One man displayed several Qurans burned in the strikes.
Outraged residents accused the Americans of trying to inflict maximum damaged by firing two strikes — one first to attack and another to kill the rescuers.
"The number of casualties is so high because after the first missile we jumped to rescue the victims," said Wissam Ali Hamad. "The second missile killed those trying to carry out the rescue."
U.S. Marines besieged Fallujah in April after four American security contractors were killed in an ambush in the city and their bodies mutilated.
Ten Marines and hundreds of Iraqis, many of them civilians, died before the siege was lifted and security was handed over to an Iraqi volunteer force, the Fallujah Brigade.
The clashes northeast of the capital began Wednesday in Buhriz when insurgents fired on U.S. troops after they met with the mayor to discuss reconstruction projects, 1st Infantry Division spokesman Maj. Neal O'Brien said.
Buhriz is located on the outskirts of Baqouba, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad,
Clashes have continued intermittently in the Baqouba area ever since. One American soldier died of wounds suffered Friday in Buhriz, O'Brien said.
The clashes spread Saturday to nearby Tahrir, where insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at a U.S. patrol, wounding two U.S. soldiers, O'Brien said. The soldiers were evacuated to the 31st Combat Support Hospital.
Dr. Nassir Jawad of the Baqouba General Hospital said at least six Iraqis were killed and 54 were wounded in the Buhriz fighting. Municipal officials had said 13 Iraqis died. U.S. officials put the Iraqi death toll at 10 in the Thursday fighting and five on Friday.
In southern Iraq, a roadside bomb killed at least two people, including a Portuguese security official working for the state-run Oil Products Co. and an Iraqi policeman guarding him, police Capt. Diaa Hussein said. The Portugese Foreign Ministry confirmed the death of the Portuguese citizen, Antonio Jose Monteiro Abelha, 36.
The two were driving on a road from the southern city of Basra to nearby Zubayr when the blast destroyed their vehicle. One civilian driving behind them was also injured, Hussein said.
It was the second attack in four days against people involved in protecting Iraq's oil industry. On Wednesday, gunmen killed the security chief of the state-run Northern Oil Company, Ghazi Talabani, in Kirkuk.
Insurgents have also targeted Iraq's strategic pipeline system, cutting off all exports from the southern oilfields in bombings this week. Iraq hopes to resume partial exports this weekend.
Exports from Iraq's other field near Kirkuk were halted last month due to sabotage on the pipeline to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, Turkey.
Iraq had been exporting about 1.5 million barrels of crude oil a day through two southern pipelines, both of which were damaged. A coalition spokesman said Friday the smaller pipeline had nearly been repaired but full exports would probably not resume before Wednesday.
The pipeline attacks are part of a stepped up campaign of violence in the run-up to the June 30 transfer of sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government.
Meanwhile, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement it would be unlawful for the United States to hold detainees, including Saddam Hussein, after the June 30 power transfer without charging them with crimes.
The U.S. military has said it will continue to hold thousands of prisoners detained since it invaded Iraq last year and that it could do so legally until a "cessation of hostilities."
"The Bush Administration can't have its cake and it too. If the occupation is over, so is the U.S. authority to detain Iraqis without criminal charges," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
VERY VERY GOOD!
Secondary explosions? Bulls-eye...
1 - "The clashes northeast of the capital began Wednesday in Buhriz when insurgents fired on U.S. troops after they met with the mayor to discuss reconstruction projects, 1st Infantry Division spokesman Maj. Neal O'Brien said. "
Let's rebuild Feluga like the Romans rebuilt Carthage.
the naysayers around here, who consider themselves the chosen 'conservatives', are only about having an excuse to lose
if it ever becomes clear that bush is winning, they'll be back riding the bandwagon--sans recantations
Works for me. You can't beat the recidivism rate.
Good! If they didn't get him this time, I hope they get him next time!
Well let's see what Mr. Roth has to say when the Iraqis start detaining folks without criminal charges. What will Human Rights Watch do then?
They use their OWN women and children as human shields when they're attacking convoys going through towns. Despicable doesn't begin to describe them.
Outrageous yes but it is that missile that allows those MFers at abc news to show those pictures. And thank GOD everyone knows it.... NOW. Look at the ratings of Fox news.
That's right. Forgot to mention that these scum buckets use innocents as human shields. They and their child sacrificing, violent, intolerant, jew-hating, infidel-hating, bloodthirsty religion makes my blood boil...
It blowed up real good.
It sure looks different when you impose the same disclaimer on every statement, not just the one that the AP selected. Brilliant post. AP needs to see that.
Still laughing over that one! :)
They certainly do. Fresh from the Peter Arnett school of journalism.
Thanks - that image tends to stick in the mind. (Sorry for the slow response - I was out of town all week.)
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