20 killed in US airstrike on Zarqawi 'hideout': Militants attack police station
BAGHDAD, June 25: A US airstrike on a suspected guerilla hideout in Fallujah killed between 20 and 25 people on Friday, a senior US official said.
The US military said it used "precision weapons" to carry out the attack on a "known Zarqawi network safe house", referring to Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant.
"Somewhere between 20 and 25 people were killed in today's strike," the official said.
The military said the house was destroyed in the daylight strike, the third on suspected Fallujah safe houses this week.
"This operation employed precision weapons to target and destroy the safe house and underscores the coalition's continuing resolve...to completely destroy terrorist networks," Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt of the US Army said in a statement.
Fallujah residents said the house, in the southeast of the city, was reduced to rubble.
Washington, due to hand over to an interim Iraqi government on June 30, accuses Zarqawi of links to Al Qaeda and says he has masterminded a number of major attacks, as well as being responsible for the beheading of an American and a South Korean.
Militants in Fallujah issued a taped statement on Friday denying Zarqawi was holed up in the town.
The attack occurred shortly before Iraqi Defence Minister Hazim al Shalaan warned guerillas that Iraq's security forces, backed by Washington, were determined to crush them.
"Today is the day for the Iraqi people to say to these traitors that the time has come for a showdown and God willing that showdown will be big and victory will be for us, the people," said Mr Shalaan.
Both ministers blamed Iraq's instability on foreign fighters and said it was up to all Iraqis to cooperate with the new interim government in putting an end to the guerrilla threat.
"We have capacities and capabilities that will soon be seen," Mr Shalaan said.
Militants killed three Iraqi policemen in an attack with rocket-propelled grenades on a police station near the town of Baquba, north of Baghdad, on Saturday.
Some of the black-clad gunmen who attacked police and government buildings in Baquba proclaimed loyalty to Abu Musab al Zarqawi and wore yellow headbands linking them to his militant group.
Iraq's national security adviser Mowaffaq al Rubaie said Iraqi officials had good intelligence on Zarqawi.
"We will adopt a pre-emptive strike against these people," he told ABC television. "We will not wait for them to come to Baghdad to do these massacres against our civilian people."
SADR MILITIA: The Mehdi Army militia of radical Shia leader Moqtada al Sadr declared a unilateral ceasefire on Thursday in a Baghdad slum - its last holdout against US troops.
Moqtada Sadr, apparently keen to enter mainstream politics, has already withdrawn his forces from Najaf and Karbala under pressure from moderate leaders. -Reuters
