Air support bombards Baghdad, Tikrit

US soldiers launch mortar attacks from armored personnel carriers to enemy positions in and around Tikrit in northern Iraq on Tuesday evening as part of military operations codenamed Ivy Cyclone II. PHOTO: EPA

The US-led coalition called in air support against targets in central Baghdad late on Tuesday for the first time since its spring invasion, deafening the capital with repeated salvoes of aerial cannon fire as it pressed its new get-tough message.

In one of a spate of barrages that punctured the evening festivities that normally characterize the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, nearly 40 separate rounds were audible across the city.

A US military spokesman said five separate locations from which mortar or rocket attacks had been launched on the coalition's sprawling, heavily fortified city center administrative compound were targeted in the evening's raids.

"These targets were struck using an aerial platform with 105mm cannon fire and 40mm gunfire," the spokesman said without specifying whether the aircraft were fixed-wing or helicopters.

"These locations may be abandoned buildings, they may be overgrown.

"The coalition needs to make sure that its soldiers are safe and cannot be threatened by mortar and rocket attacks. When there is a known location the coalition needs to make sure that that location is not used again."

The spokesman said that to his knowledge no resistance had been put up to the US show of strength and no casualties had resulted.

"Everything has been done to make sure that there were no casualties. At this point we have heard of no casualties from the strikes of this evening."

Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, Commanding General of the 1st Armored Division said coalition forces had also conducted a raid on a the home of a man suspected of storing illegal weapons, He was captured and a dozen rocket-propelled grenade launchers were seized along with two rifles.

"Throughout this operation we are communicating with the Iraqi people to let them know that these combat operations are being executed on their behalf, for it is only in a safe and secure environment that they can achieve the kind of life they deserve," he said in a press statement.

In recent days, US commanders have taken off the gloves in their battle with insurgents, resorting to air strikes and heavy artillery against their safe houses, arms caches and underground bomb factories.

Air support has been called in several times north and west of the capital, but Tuesday's was only the second reported incidence in Baghdad itself.

On Nov. 13, an AC-130 aircraft was used against a hiding place used by anti-US insurgents in the southern suburb of Dora.

The US spokesman said Tuesday's raids were part of Operation Iron Hammer, a massive military offensive launched in and around Baghdad on Nov. 12.

"It is basically no different than in the previous phases of the operation. It's just the case that it's closer into the center," he said.

Further north outside former president Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, US forces pounded insurgent positions with mortar fire for a third consecutive night late on Tuesday in another show of strength.

A platoon positioned itself in a dusty field outside the town, to fire mortar rounds from atop armored personnel carriers, flanked by combat tanks.

To boost the menacing effect of the display of firepower, the mortars were launched two at a time in rapid succession, targeting fields the military says had been used in attacks against coalition forces.

Flashes lit up the night sky and huge explosions rocked the ground as the mortars hit their targets.

"We are claiming the ground the enemy used in the past," said Lieutenant Colin Crow, the commander of the mortar platoon from the 4th Infantry Division's 1-22 batallion.

"The enemy will think twice about using that terrain again, knowing we can hit it with indirect fire," he said after directing the operation, which he described as "harassment and interdiction."

The Tikrit-based 4th ID troops have been targeting insurgent positions with renewed vigor since launching on Sunday what they dubbed Operation Ivy Cyclone II.

Troops have fired two satellite-guided missiles, several helicopter-launched Hellfire missiles, as well as mortar and tank rounds, at safe houses, training grounds and other positions they say are used by former regime loyalists to attack them.

"Now it's no holds barred. We use whatever weapons that are necessary to take the fight to the enemy," said Major General Charles Swannack, whose 82nd Airborne Division patrols Al-Anbar province west of the capital, another hotbed of anti-US insurgency.

The general insisted that with the accuracy of modern weaponry, there was minimal danger of collateral damage from the strikes that might alienate the hearts and minds of the ordinary Iraqis whom the coalition is seeking to win over.