Iraqi fighters from Falluja, their faces hidden behind checkered cloths, denied in a taped message Friday that suspected al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was holed up in Iraq’s most rebellious city. "The American invader forces claim that Zarqawi, and with him a group of Arab fighters, are in our city," a masked man read from a piece of paper. "We know that this talk about Zarqawi and the fighters is a game the American invader forces are playing to strike Islam and Muslims in the city of mosques, steadfast Falluja." On the tape, five men holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and machine gun said local fighters were defending their hometown -- sometimes known as the "city of mosques."
On Friday, U.S. forces again bombed houses in the city, residents said, causing damage but no deaths. At the same time, insurgents attacked a U.S. military convoy southwest of Falluja and fought a short firefight with troops, witnesses said. One guerrilla was killed in the fighting. It was not immediately clear if U.S. forces sustained casualties. Scores of black-clad gunmen, some claiming loyalty to Zarqawi, attacked a police station and other government buildings in Baquba, northwest of Baghdad, in a dawn assault. Iraq’s interim national security minister said Thursday Iraqi officials had good intelligence on Zarqawi, who this week threatened to assassinate Iraq’s prime minister, and plan to pursue him after the formal transfer of power next week. |