November 20, 2003	Thursday	Ramazan 24, 1424

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BAGHDAD, Nov 19: The US-led authority for Iraq on Wednesday called in air support against targets in central Baghdad for the first time since the spring invasion, deafening the capital with repeated aerial cannon fire as it pressed a new get-tough message.

And warplanes dropped 1,000-kg bombs on Tuesday night on four camps near the northern Iraqi town of Baquba that are used to make the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) favoured by anti-US fighters, a military spokesman said.

Jet fighters also dropped 500-kg Joint Direct Action Munitions (JDAMs) on “terrorist buildings” near the northern oil centre of Kirkuk, said Major Gordon Tate of the Fourth Infantry Division.

“All the buildings were destroyed. We don’t know if there were people in them.”

Major Tate said the attacks were part of the four-day-old Operation Ivy Cyclone II outside Baghdad in which 55 targets were hit on Tuesday night by howitzers, helicopter-borne Hellfire missiles, mortar and tank fire.

“Six people were captured, including two suspected of making IEDs,” he added.

In the capital, repeated barrages were heard during the evening.

A US military spokesman said five locations from which mortar or rocket attacks had recently been launched on the US-led administration’s heavily fortified compound came under fire.

“These targets were struck using an aerial platform with 105mms cannon fire and 40mms gunfire,” the spokesman said, suggesting fixed-wing aircraft were used.

“These locations may be abandoned buildings, they may be overgrown.

“The coalition needs to make sure that its soldiers are safe and cannot be threatened by mortar and rocket attacks.”

The spokesman said that to his knowledge no resistance had been put up to the show of strength and no casualties had resulted.

Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, commanding general of the US First Armored Division, said the occupation forces had also conducted a raid on the home of a man suspected of storing illegal weapons and a column of 17 Humvees was seen by an eyewitness the central Karada district of the city.

The suspect was captured and a dozen rocket-propelled grenade launchers were seized along with two rifles.

“Throughout this operation we are communicating with the Iraqi people to let them know that these combat operations are being executed on their behalf, for it is only in a safe and secure environment that they can achieve the kind of life they deserve,” said Gen Dempsey.

In recent days, US commanders have taken off the gloves in their battle with resistance fighters, resorting to airstrikes and heavy artillery against their safe houses, arms caches and underground bomb factories.

Air support has been called in several times north and west of the capital, but Tuesday’s was only the second reported incidence in Baghdad itself.

On Nov 13, an AC-130 aircraft was used against a hiding place used by the guerillas in the southern suburb of Dora.

The US spokesman said Tuesday’s raids were part of Operation Iron Hammer, a massive military offensive launched in and around Baghdad on Nov 12.

Further north outside Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, US forces pounded guerilla positions with mortar fire for a third consecutive night on Tuesday in another show of strength.

“We are claiming the ground the enemy used in the past,” said Lieutenant Colin Crow, the commander of the mortar platoon from the Fourth Infantry Division.

“The enemy will think twice about using that terrain again, knowing we can hit it with indirect fire.”

Another senior US commander defended the new get-tough tactics.

“Now it’s no holds barred. We use whatever weapons that are necessary to take the fight to the enemy,” said Major General Charles Swannack, whose 82nd Airborne Division patrols Al Anbar province, west of the capital, another hotbed of resistance. —AFP