FALLUJA, June 19: US forces killed 22 people on Saturday in a "precision strike" on a house in the flashpoint Iraqi city of Falluja that the military said was being used as a safehouse by militants linked to Al Qaeda.

Furious Iraqis said the dead included women and children. But Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt claimed in Baghdad the house was being used by fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, accused by Washington of leading a bloody campaign of suicide bombings and of decapitating a US hostage last month.

"We have significant evidence that there were members of the Zarqawi network in the house," Gen Kimmitt said. But officers said there was no sign that Zarqawi himself - who has a $10 million price on his head - was there when the house was destroyed.

Falluja residents said two missiles had been fired at the house by a US plane on Saturday morning, flattening the building. Kimmitt said the US strike had caused secondary blasts as ammunition inside the house exploded.

"An American plane hit this house and three others were damaged. Only body parts are left," a witness said, as rescuers dug through the rubble of the shattered house for survivors.

"They brought us 22 corpses, children, women and youth," Ahmed Hassan, a cemetery worker, said after the blast.

Washington says the Jordanian-born Zarqawi has been the mastermind between a series of bloody suicide attacks in Iraq that have sowed chaos and claimed hundreds of lives.-Reuters