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Seven Iraqis killed, 11 wounded as US forces pound Fallujah
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-25 13:55
U.S. warplanes, tanks and artillery units struck the insurgent stronghold of
Fallujah on Saturday, killing at least eight people and wounding 15 in a day
that saw new violence across the country and the U.S. military announced the
deaths of four Marines.
The Marines were killed in three separate incidents Friday while
conducting security operations in Anbar province, the military said. No further
details were provided.
Seven people have been killed and 11
wounded overnight when US forces again used artillery and planes to pound
the anti-coalition stronghold of Fallujah, west of Baghdad.
[AFP] |
In Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a
vehicle carrying Iraqi National Guard applicants, killing six people, police
said. The slayings were part of a militant campaign targeting Iraqi security
forces and recruits in a bid to thwart U.S.-backed efforts to build an Iraqi
force capable of taking over security from American troops.
Police Lt. Omar Ahmed said the group had just left a national guard
recruiting center where they had signed up to join the force in the west Baghdad
neighborhood of Al-Jamiyah when the attack occurred.
Underscoring just how dependent the government still is on outside help,
interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi urged the international community to set
aside its differences over the legality of the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein
and "stand fast by Iraq."
"We need to broaden the base of troop-contributing countries to (the
multinational force) so that we would stand more determined and be better
equipped to confront terrorism," he told the U.N. General Assembly in New York
on Friday.
The U.S. military said the Fallujah strikes targeted a meeting point in the
center of the city for fighters loyal to Jordanian-born terror mastermind Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi.
"Intelligence sources reported that Zarqawi terrorists were using the site to
plan additional attacks against Iraqi citizens and multinational forces," the
military said in a statement.
American forces also bombed rebel-built fortifications late Friday, including
concrete and earthen barriers and roadblocks, used to restrict movement in the
city and mount attacks on Marine positions outside Fallujah, the military said
in a separate statement Saturday.
Dr. Dhiya al-Jumaili of Fallujah General Hospital said at least eight people
were killed and 15 wounded, including women and children.
Explosions lit up the night sky for hours and at least two buildings in the
city center were wrecked, witnesses said. The Fallujah mosque switched on its
loudspeakers and clerics chanted prayers to rally the city's residents.
Earlier Friday, Marines fired artillery rounds after observing a number of
insurgents getting out of a vehicle with a mounted machine gun, said 1st Lt.
Lyle Gilbert, a Marine spokesman.
American troops have not entered Fallujah since ending a three-week siege of
the city in April that left hundreds dead.
Saturday's strikes were the latest in a string of attacks against
al-Zarqawi's network, which has claimed responsibility for numerous car
bombings, kidnappings and other assaults meant to destabilize Iraq's U.S.-backed
interim authorities and drive coalition forces from the country.
Among the hostages Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group claims to have taken is
Briton Kenneth Bigley, kidnapped with two Americans earlier this week. The
Americans were beheaded, one purportedly by Zarqawi himself.
On Friday, the Muslim Council of Britain sent a pair of negotiators to meet
with religious leaders in Baghdad to try to win Bigley's release. The group
described Daud Abdullah and Musharraf Hussain as "well-respected figures in the
British Muslim community."
A posting on an Islamic Internet site Saturday claimed that Bigley had been
killed. The claim could not immediately be verified, but surfaced on a Web site
usually used by followers of Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to
post their statements.
The site also claimed that seven British troops had been captured, but Capt.
Donald Francis, a spokesman for the British military said that all forces "are
accounted for."
He had no information on the claim to have killed Bigley.
Iqbal Sacranie, the group's secretary-general, on Friday urged Bigley's
captors to free him.
"Our religion Islam does not allow us to harm the innocent," said Iqbal
Sacranie, the group's secretary-general. He urged the kidnappers to "release
this man back into the arms of his waiting family."
Also Friday, authorities said kidnappers had seized six Egyptians and four
Iraqis working for the country's mobile phone company. Gunmen abducted two of
the Egyptians on Thursday in a bold raid on the firm's Baghdad office — the
latest in a string of kidnappings targeting engineers working on Iraq's
infrastructure, in a bid to undermine the U.S.-allied interim government. Eight
other company employees were seized outside Baghdad on Wednesday.
More than 140 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq — some by anti-U.S.
insurgents and some by criminals seeking ransoms. At least 26 of them have been
killed.
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