A U.S. airstrike in Fallujah on Tuesday killed an aide to Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the military said, while Iraqi officials investigated whether insurgents got inside information that helped them kill about 50 U.S.-trained soldiers. The U.S. military said the early morning raid struck a safehouse used by al-Zarqawi's group. U.S. forces have stepped up aerial and artillery assaults on Fallujah in recent weeks in an attempt to root out insurgents. "Recent strikes and raids targeting the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi network have severely degraded its ability to conduct attacks," the U.S. statement said. It did not give the name of the slain al-Zarqawi aide. Meanwhile, Iraqi officials said there was an investigation underway into the deadly ambush of about 50 U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers Saturday. Defense Ministry spokesman Salih Sarhan said, "The investigation is underway and we are still collecting information. ...The investigation is mainly to know whether there was any information leakage." The attack on the soldiers, who were returning home on leave, occurred on a remote eastern Iraq highway when their buses were stopped by insurgents at a fake checkpoint, according to police and defense officials. Some of the bodies were found in rows — shot execution-style through the head — at a site about 95 miles east of Baghdad, the Defense Ministry said. Other bodies were found on a burned bus nearby.
Iraqi police and soldiers have been increasingly targeted by insurgents, mostly with car bombs and mortar shells. However, the fact that the insurgents were able to strike at so many unarmed soldiers in such a remote region suggested the guerrillas may have had advance word on the soldiers' travel. "There was probably collusion among the soldiers or other groups," Diyala province's Deputy Gov. Aqil Hamid al-Adili told Al-Arabiya television. "Otherwise, the gunmen would not have gotten the information about the soldiers' departure from their training camp and that they were unarmed."