US warplanes pounded a suspected hideout of al-Qaeda-linked militants in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah yesterday, killing at least 16 people and wounding 12, officials and witnesses said. The strike came a day after a surge in violence killed 78 people across Iraq.
The US military said jets carried out a precision strike on a site in Fallujah where several members of a group led by Jordanian-born terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were meeting.
"Intelligence sources reported the presence of several key 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.
The military said reports indicated the strikes had achieved their aim, but did not name the operatives.
Witnesses said the bombing targeted the city's residential al-Shurta neighborhood, damaging buildings and raising clouds of black smoke.
Women and children
Dr. Adel Khamis of the Fallujah General Hospital said at least 16 people were killed, including women and children, and 12 others wounded. An ambulance rushing from the area of the blasts was hit by a shell, killing the driver, a paramedic and five patients inside the vehicle, said another hospital official, Hamid Salaman.
"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."
Witnesses said that US 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.
Marketplace
One explosion went off in a market place in Fallujah as the first sellers had just begun to set up their stalls, wounding several people and shattering windows, witnesses said.
US forces pulled out of Fallujah in April after ending a three-week siege that left hundreds dead and a trail of devastation. The US Marines have not patrolled inside Fallujah since then and Sunni insurgents have strengthened their hold on the city.
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 yesterday.
Nobody was injured in the Sunday night blast, said police Lieutenant Colonel Sahi Abdullah. Iraqi police have regularly been attacked by insurgents who view them as collaborators with American troops.
Insurgents hammered central Baghdad with intense mortar and rocket barrages, heralding a day of violence that killed 78 people nationwide as security appeared to spiral out of control.
At least 37 people were killed in Baghdad alone. Many of them died when a US helicopter fired on a disabled US Bradley fighting vehicle.
Also See Story:
Allawi: elections will go ahead
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central