A bit more detail on yesterday's article...
A U.S. warplane fired missiles Saturday into a residential neighborhood in Fallujah, killing at least 20 people and leveling houses, police and residents said. In the Fallujah strike, at least two houses were demolished and six others were damaged in the poor neighborhood. At least 20 bodies were counted, and they were taken for burial immediately at the city's "martyrs' cemetery in accordance with Islamic custom of burying the dead quickly. At least three women and five children were among the dead.
Two other people died at the hospital, officials there said. "At 9:30 a.m., a U.S. plane shot two missiles on this residential area," said the Fallujah police chief, Sabbar al-Janabi, according to The AP. "Scores were killed and injured. This picture speaks for itself." U.S. officials have said Jordanian-born al Qaeda activist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may be hiding in the city. Al-Zarqawi has been blamed for the string of car bombs across Iraq.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the military's deputy operations chief, said multiple intelligence sources suggested that "a significant number of people in the Zarqawi network" were in the house at the time of the attack. U.S. officials said they did not know if al-Zarqawi was there.
Outraged residents gathered around the site after the explosions damaged eight homes in a poor neighborhood of the city. The Health Ministry said at least 16 people were killed, but witnesses said at least 20 people, including women and children, were killed. Kimmitt said the attack set off ammunition and weapons stored in the safehouse, triggering "multiple secondary explosions" that could have caused some of the casualties and damage. Residents, however, accused the United States of striking twice — the second time after rescuers moved into the site trying to pull out victims.
The surprise breakfast-hour strike was the first significant U.S. military move in Fallujah since April, when Marines backed away from a bloody three-week siege against insurgents holed up there. Since the U.S. forces left, residents have said extremist influence in the Sunni Muslim city, west of Baghdad, has grown. |