IRAQ: The US military stepped up its efforts to check Iraq's destabilising insurgency yesterday by pounding targets in Falluja, killing dozens of people, with women and children reported to be among the injured, writes Rory McCarthy in Baghdad
Details of the raids emerged as Baghdad was once again hit by a suicide car bomber, who attacked a police checkpoint. Thirteen people died.
The bloodshed came at the end of a desperate week in which more than 250 people were killed in fighting across the country, and three more Westerners were kidnapped.
Violence was also reported in Basra yesterday where British troops clashed with fighters loyal to rebel cleric Mr Moqtada al-Sadr. Troops raided an office used by supporters of Mr al-Sadr, seizing a large quantity of weapons and explosives, a military spokesman said. The British army confirmed there had been one British casualty in Basra. The Baghdad car bomb exploded beside a line of police four-wheel drives, incinerating seven of them. Several policemen were among the dead and at least 50 people were injured.
Police had set up the cars to block the Martyrs Bridge that crosses the Tigris in the centre of Baghdad as part of an early morning operation against militants in the Haifa Street area, where there have been several days of fighting. US troops said they fired at another car packed with explosives that was heading towards their checkpoint in Haifa Street. The car exploded killing two men inside and injuring an Iraqi National Guard soldier.
By the end of the day Iraqi police said they had arrested 63 suspects, including Syrians, Egyptians and Sudanese.
Caches of weapons, including rockets and grenades, were also seized, Iraqi officials said.
Yesterday's suicide bomb attack appeared to signal a new tactic. Car bombs have usually been directed at fixed targets such as police stations and the entrances to US headquarters in the heavily fortified green zone. But the latest attacks have been against moving targets and temporary checkpoints.
On Sunday a car bomber, also in the Haifa Street area, detonated his explosives next to a moving US Bradley armoured vehicle. A similar attack last week on a passing US convoy in Falluja claimed the lives of seven US marines.
For the past two weeks the US military has led air strikes on targets in Falluja almost daily. On Thursday night a raid was launched against what the US military said was a "confirmed Abu Musab Zarqawi terrorist meeting site". Mr Zarqawi, a Jordanian, is blamed by the US for conducting many of the devastating bombings and assassinations that have shaken postwar Iraq.
The military said the strike hit a compound in fields around the town of Qaryat Rufush at 9.45 p.m. It said around 90 "foreign fighters" were present "to plan attacks against the Iraqi people, Iraqi security forces and multinational forces" and estimated that 60 had been killed and three buildings destroyed.
As is frequently the case, Iraqi officials and those in Falluja strongly disputed the US military's account of the raid.
A spokesman for Iraq's health ministry said 44 people died and 27 were injured. The injured included 17 children and two women, he said. Television footage showed seriously injured women and children.
US fighter jets bombed another compound in the south of the city early yesterday. The US military lost control of Falluja weeks ago and no longer patrols there. But commanders and Iraqi leaders are anxious to quell the militants before elections due in January.
Falluja is also thought to be the base for many of the groups involved in an increasingly sophisticated wave of kidnapping. Yesterday the British embassy in Baghdad warned all British citizens of the new kidnapping tactics.
"This and other recent incidents highlight the change in tactics away from roadside abductions to entering properties to snatch foreign nationals," the embassy said in an e-mail circular. "Those of you who do decide to stay you should review your own security arrangements and protection and consider moving to premises within guarded areas. ." - (Guardian Service)