BAGHDAD, 6 July 2004 — A US airstrike on a suspected militant hide-out in Fallujah late yesterday killed at least 15 people as Iraq’s caretaker government put the final touches to emergency security measures.
The country’s hostage crisis raged on, as a shadowy militant group said it had freed a US Marine it had threatened to behead, but Marines said they had no knowledge of whether the Lebanese-born man had really been freed.
The strike on Fallujah occurred at 7:15 p.m. when US warplanes dropped four 500-pound bombs and two 1,000-pound bombs “against a mujahedeen safe house,” said a US military spokesman.
It was the deadliest single incident since the US-led coalition handed official power to a caretaker government on June 28.
Hospital sources said at least 15 people were killed and five wounded in the attack on a house in the Shuhada neighborhood of the restive city, 50 kilometers west of Baghdad.
Volunteer Amer Hassan said he saw “eight bodies pulled out,” as he lifted debris frantically and dozens searched for people buried in the wreckage. In a bid to tackle hotbeds like Fallujah, Iraq’s national security adviser said emergency security measures, to be unveiled by the end of the week, will include the right to slap down curfews and arrest suspects more easily. “We were ironing out the creases, crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s,” Muwaffaq Al-Rubaie told reporters.
The measures, intended to crush a 14-month rebellion, will include curfews, restrictions on movement and “pre-emptive arrests,” allowing police to detain people on strong suspicions that they were involved in misdeeds, Rubaie said.
The announcement of the sweeping security measures was originally set for yesterday, but the government delayed it amid last-minute tweaking.
In an explanation for the delay, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi told reporters that he wanted to ensure “human and citizen rights guarantees”. Among other measures expected to be included, was an amnesty for rebels not considered hardcore supporters of the rebellion.
Foreign militants from across the Arab world have appeared in a chilling video tape which claimed they carried out some of the bloodiest bombings in Iraq since the war ended. The tape obtained by Time magazine and given to Reuters Television shows young men enraged by the US occupation of Iraq saying farewell to their loved ones before climbing into vehicles and blowing themselves up in operations across Iraq.
In the video, militants in headdresses clutching rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault rifles stand in the desert late at night as one of their ranks engages in what appears to be a presuicide bombing ritual.
He reads a statement telling his father, mother, brother and loved ones that he will miss them after he performs his duty to wage holy war.
In rumbling violence, three Iraqis were killed and 11 wounded in four separate attacks across the country against police and US soldiers.
— Additional input from agencies
