An Islamist militant group targeted by a US air strike that killed 22 people in Falluja does not operate in the rebellious Sunni Muslim town, Iraqi security officers said today.
The US military said yesterday's raid was aimed at a safe house used by militants led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian described by the Americans as al Qaeda's leader in Iraq.
The air strike, which flattened a house, shattered a lull in Falluja since last month's truce ended bloody battles between US Marines and insurgents. It also fuelled tensions ahead of the formal end of Iraq's US-led occupation on June 30th.
The US military had allowed an Iraqi force, known as the Falluja Brigade, led by former Iraqi army officers, to take over security in the fiercely anti-American town west of Baghdad.
Brigadier Nouri Aboud, a member of the Falluja Brigade, said there was no evidence the destroyed house had been used by anyone except the large Iraqi family that lived there.
"We inspected the damage, we looked through the bodies of the women and children and elderly. This was a family," he said.
"There is no sign of foreigners having lived in the house. Zarqawi and his men have no presence in Falluja."
US military officers said there was no sign Zarqawi himself - who has a $10 million price on his head - was in the house in Falluja when it was destroyed.
Last month, Marines killed around 40 Iraqis in an attack on a house in the western desert near the Syrian border. The US military said the house was a staging point for foreign fighters but survivors said a wedding party had been massacred.
The Americans portray Zarqawi as a key figure linked to al Qaeda. In neighbouring Saudi Arabia, security forces killed local al Qaeda leader Abdulaziz al-Muqrin just hours after his group beheaded US hostage Paul Johnson in Riyadh on Friday.
Zarqawi's group has also claimed responsibility for the May 17th assassination of the head of Iraq's now-dissolved Governing Council, as well as last Monday's suicide car bombing in Baghdad that killed 13 people, including five foreign contractors.