BAGHDAD, 18 September 2004 — US warplanes bombed the central Iraqi city of Fallujah yesterday, killing 44 people, many of them women and children. Hours later a suicide attacker detonated an explosives-packed vehicle near a row of police cars blocking off a bridge in central Baghdad, killing at least eight people.
US planes hit a Fallujah district, demolishing 13 houses, in what the US military called a “precision strike on a terrorist compound” of suspected Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi.
The Health Ministry said 44 people were killed and 27 wounded, and a doctor at the Fallujah general hospital said many of the victims were women and children.
Sunni cleric Sheikh Abdelghafur Al-Samarrai lashed out at the US military for the bombings. “If you have intelligence on the location of Zarqawi and his elements why don’t you surround and capture them?” he asked during his weekly sermon.
As many as 60 foreign fighters were killed in one strike on a “confirmed Zarqawi terrorist meeting site,” the US military said, although it was impossible to verify the claim.
Fallujah General Hospital said two Iraqi women were killed and eight others wounded in another raid on the lawless city, where much of the hostage-taking that has plagued Iraq for six months is thought to be masterminded.
Blood covered the floors of the hospital as doctors struggled to cope with a flood of casualties, many brought to the hospital in private cars with ambulances overwhelmed. Relatives pounded their chests in grief and denounced the United States.
The car bomb in Baghdad gouged out a large crater on the road and set ablaze several police cars. The Interior Ministry said five policemen had been killed and the Health Ministry said at least three civilians were also dead.
It was the second car bombing this week targeting Baghdad police forces, part of a stepped up campaign of violence to thwart US-backed efforts to strengthen the Iraqi security forces and bring stability to the country ahead of January elections.
A half-dozen cars were blocking the bridge when a car drew up to them, said policeman Ammar Ali. Police asked the driver to stop, but he continued to advance and exploded his vehicle in the middle of the parked cars, Ali said.
Earlier, US forces intercepted another car carrying explosives as it attempted to break through a checkpoint in Baghdad, the military said in a statement. When the vehicle refused to stop, troops opened fire, setting off the explosives. The two people inside the vehicle were killed and an Iraqi National Guard soldier was wounded in the incident, the statement said.
Down south, British troops and fighters loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr clashed in Basra. A British military spokesman said one British soldier was injured.
Fighting erupted between the British troops and Mehdi Army militiamen near Sadr’s office in Al-Tuwaisa neighborhood in the city center. Squadron Leader Steve Dharamraj, a spokesman for the British military, would only say that “there has been an incident in central Basra city.”
— Additional input from agencies
