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US mounts attacks in Fallujah, Samarra
U.S. forces attacked a suspected safehouse used by an al-Qaeda-linked group in Fallujah, the military said, and American troops launched a large operation in Samarra, one of the country's major insurgent strongholds, according to a report.U.S. troops and Iraqi national guardsmen launched a brigade-sized operation in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, according to a CNN reporter embedded with the unit. Brigade operations could involve several thousand troops. Tanks and military jets were being used in the operation, and troops were taking the city "sector by sector," according to CNN reporter Jane Arraf. The report, broadcast early Friday local time, said the troops were moving against some 2,000 rebels believed to be inside the city. They were clearing buildings and mosques, CNN said. Meanwhile, intelligence reports indicated the house attacked by U.S. forces on Thursday was being used by followers of Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the military said in a statement, adding that the followers were planning attacks against U.S.-led forces and Iraqi citizens. Also, there were conflicting accounts about the deaths of at least six people near Fallujah on Wednesday after an incident involving American forces. Iraqis who identified themselves as witnesses said U.S. forces opened fire on a car passing Fallujah on the road from Baghdad. The driver was shot in the head and lost control of the car, which plunged into a canal, said Hussein Alwan, who lives near the scene. A man was brought to Fallujah General Hospital late Wednesday with a bullet wound to the head, Dr. Ahmed Khalil said. Later, the bodies of two women and five children were also brought to the hospital after being recovered from the submerged vehicle, hospital officials and witnesses said. But the U.S. military said it fired only warning shots at a vehicle driving erratically toward a convoy on the road between Ramadi and Fallujah. 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert, a U.S. Marine spokesman, said the vehicle then swerved off the road, nose-dived into a canal and became submerged. "The male driver — believed to be the vehicle's only occupant — exited the vehicle and was treated on the scene by a U.S. Navy corpsman," Gilbert said in a statement. However, Iraqi police responding to the incident later recovered six bodies from the submerged vehicle and took them to Ramadi, Gilbert said. The two accounts could not immediately be reconciled. In the safehouse attack, witnesses said two houses were flattened and four others damaged in the strike. At least four Iraqis were killed — including two women and one child — and eight wounded, said Khalil, the doctor. "Multinational forces take great care to minimize collateral damage and civilian casualties," the military said in the statement. "Terrorists' placement of weapons caches in homes, schools, hospitals and mosques continue to put innocent civilians at risk." Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-09-30 |
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