US defends deadly Iraqi air strike

5.00pm

US 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.

US military officers said there was no sign Zarqawi himself - who has a US$10 million(NZ$16.27 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 US 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 US-led coalition formally hand sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government on June 30.

Pro-American authorities in neighbouring Saudi Arabia said they had killed al Qaeda's leader in the kingdom, Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, and three other prominent militants.

The Saudi operation came hours after the group carried out its threat to behead US hostage Paul Johnson on Friday.

Residents of Falluja said two missiles had been fired at the house by a US plane on Saturday morning, flattening the building. Kimmitt said the US 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 cemetrey 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 US 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 US 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.

US commanders say pacifying restive Falluja is crucial for stability ahead of the formal handover of sovereignty.

Hundreds of Iraqis were killed in the city in April in fighting between US Marines and guerrillas, sparking outrage in Iraq. The US military agreed a truce and handed responsibility for security to an Iraqi force that includes many former officers in Saddam Hussein's armed forces.

Guerrillas bent on disrupting this month's handover of sovereignty brought Iraq's crucial oil exports to a halt this week with attacks on two key southern pipelines.

On Saturday, a roadside bomb targeted foreign workers on a road southwest of Basra. Police said a Portuguese civilian and an Iraqi policeman were killed, an Indian and an Iraqi wounded.

Iraq has been unable to export any oil since the attacks.

An oil official said welders working in searing heat on the Faw peninsula south of Basra had run into delays but might complete repairs to one of the pipelines later on Saturday.

The US military reported the deaths of two more American soldiers, bringing to 614 the total killed in action since last year's invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein.

In Beirut, a Foreign Ministry source said kidnappers in Iraq freed the last Lebanese hostage who was seized last weekend. The source said George Frando was in good health.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq