BAGHDAD, 21 October 2004 — At least 12 people were killed and many injured in separate incidents in war-torn Iraq yesterday, sources said.
US air raids destroyed buildings said to belong to top militant Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi and other rebel posts in the Iraqi city of Fallujah yesterday where residents claimed a family of six were killed.
Six civilians were killed and 11 US soldiers wounded in clashes in Samarra yesterday. Two car bombs killed a child and also wounded a civilian translator in the center of the town, the US military said. Hospital officials said six civilians had been killed and 17 wounded in several clashes. Witnesses said clashes that began in the afternoon were continuing at night on the edges of the city and the nearby town of Duluiya.
A predawn raid targeted two Zarqawi safe houses in the northeast of Fallujah, while a second air strike later took out “a known enemy command and control post” to the north, the army said.
Residents in the city said they pulled a family of six from the ruins of a house hit in the dawn bombing.
“The house was completely destroyed by a missile dropped from an American plane and we have pulled from the rubble the bodies of four children, a woman and a man,” said one resident, Bassem Mohammed.
It was impossible to obtain independent confirmation. The US military made no reference to any casualties in the raids, but said that “several Zarqawi terrorists” had been using the buildings to plan attacks.
As for the later bombing, the army said it had monitored the area for 30 days and seen insurgents plant bombs along the roadside nearby and repave them.
“The same individuals were spotted wiring explosive devises near the area,” it said.
US and Iraqi forces believe that Fallujah has provided a refuge for the Jordanian-born Zarqawi, Iraq’s most wanted man, and his followers.
Determined to regain control of the no-go zone, more than 1,000 joint forces have encircled the city for the past week. Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi last week ordered Fallujah residents to surrender Zarqawi or face invasion.
Humanitarian agencies have raised concerns for the welfare of residents in the Sunni Muslim bastion amid near nightly US air raids.
Allawi said on Monday his government would send aid worth $2 million to the city, while the International Committee of the Red Cross said it sent 1.5 tons of urgent medical and surgical equipment to a Fallujah hospital.
In another incident, a car bomb exploded on the road to Baghdad’s international airport yesterday, killing only the driver.
Meanwhile, leading relief agency CARE International yesterday halted work in Iraq after its head of operations there was abducted, further fuelling fears that aid workers were becoming soft targets for hostage-takers.
Margaret Hassan, a British citizen employed through CARE Australia’s Canberra headquarters, which runs the Iraq operation, was taken hostage on Tuesday.
CARE Australia Chief Executive Robert Glasser said that CARE International’s operations in Iraq had been suspended but its remaining staff, who are all Iraqi citizens, were not being withdrawn.
“Our staff are not operating currently there. They’re certainly not working there now in light of the current situation,” Glasser told the national broadcaster, ABC.
However, two Egyptian engineers kidnapped in Iraq while working for telecom giant Orascom were released yesterday, the Al-Arabiya TV reported.
The highest-ranking US soldier to be court-martialled in Abu Ghraib jail case yesterday admitted beating and humiliating prisoners, including forcing some to do sexual acts.
Staff Sergt. Ivan Frederick told the hearing at a military camp on the outskirts of Baghdad he had been trying to prepare the detainees for interrogation.
An international conference on the future of Iraq will take place in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh on Nov. 22 and 23, an Egyptian government spokesman told reporters yesterday.
