BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - U.S forces dropped two tons of bombs on apurported militant safehouse in Fallujah, killing at least 10 people,according to officials, and turning the building into a 30-foot-deeppit of sand and rubble.
The attack was the fifth airstrike in the past two weeks in thearea where the U.S. military says Jordanian militant Abu MusabZarqawi's network has safehouses.
Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi issued an unprecedented statementsaying his government provided intelligence to the U.S. military forthe strike.
The interim government has been trying to figure out how to dealwith the insurgents, and the air strike came just hours after itpostponed an announcement of new security laws to deal with them.
Monday, an Iraqi militant group denied reports it had killed aU.S. Marine it was holding captive. In a statement sent to Al-Jazeera television, the group calling itself "Islamic Response," saidCpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, a U.S. Marine of Lebanese heritage, was safeat a location it did not identify.
On Saturday, a Web site posting claimed Hassoun had been beheaded.On Sunday, a second Web posting on another Internet site said Hassounwas alive.
In Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, rescue workers picked upbody parts after the U.S. airstrike, witnesses said. Video fromAssociated Press Television News showed the explosion flung bricksblocks away, and blood was splashed on a nearby wall.
Men gathered at the 30-foot-deep pit where the house had been andpulled out clothes, including a young child's shirt, from the rubble.
"Is this acceptable to the Iraqi government?" asked an angry manat the scene, who declined to identify himself. "Where are humanrights?"
Dr. Diaa Jumaili of Fallujah Hospital said 10 bodies had arrivedthere, most of them dismembered. Previous U.S. air strikes inFallujah have killed dozens.
The military said it had dropped four 500-pound bombs and two1,000-pound bombs. The attack used guided weapons and underscored theresolve of coalition and Iraqi forces "to jointly destroy terroristnetworks within Iraq," the military said.
Al-Zarqawi, said to be connected to al-Qaida, is believed to bebehind a series of coordinated attacks on police and security forcesthat killed 100 people only days before U.S. forces handed over powerto an Iraqi interim government.
In a statement soon after the attack, Allawi said Iraqi forcesprovided the intelligence for the location of the al-Zarqawisafehouse so the strike could "terminate those terrorists, whosebooby-trapped cars and explosive belts have harvested the souls ofinnocent Iraqis without discrimination, destroying Iraqi schools,hospitals and police stations."
Earlier in the day, Iraqi officials canceled a news conferenceMonday where they had been expected to announce a limited amnesty forinsurgents and martial law in parts of the country.
The news conference with Justice Minister Malik Dohan al-Hassanand Human Rights Minister Bakhtiyar Amin was postponed indefinitelyjust as it was scheduled to begin. The government had canceled aprevious news conference on the same topic, suggesting disagreementwithin the government over the measures.
Thousands of Kurds demonstrated Monday in Halabja, demanding thatSaddam and one of his key lieutenants - Ali Hassan al-Majid, alsoknown as "Chemical Ali" - be put to death for the attack that killed5,000 people on March 16, 1988.
"Every family in this city lost no less than five of its dearsons," said one demonstrator, Sabiha Ali, 50.
In southern Iraq, insurgents fired rockets at a governmentbuilding early Monday, but instead struck nearby homes, killing oneperson and wounding eight others, police said. The attack targetedthe province's main offices near the center of the Basra.
Interior Ministry officials also announced Monday the capture oftwo Iranians suspected of trying to detonate a car bomb. Iraqiofficials have blamed foreign fighters and religious extremists for awave of vehicle bombings in recent months.
Also Monday, authorities in the town of Sulaiminyah in the Kurdishnorth of Iraq fired at a car rigged with explosives outside a hotelthat housed diplomats, killing the driver, said Kurdish official DanaAbdul Majid.
Copyright 2003 by Telegraph-Herald, All rights Reserved.
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