BAGHDAD, 14 September 2004 — At least 20 people were killed and dozens wounded when warplanes struck what the US military called a hide-out of Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Fallujah yesterday. An insurgent group meanwhile claimed taking two Australians and two East Asians hostage while Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid wal Jihad posted a video of the beheading of a Turkish hostage on a website.
The Fallujah strike came a day after a surge in violence killed 78 people across Iraq.
The US military said jets carried out a precision strike on a site in Fallujah where several members of Tawhid wal Jihad were meeting. The military said reports indicated the strikes had achieved their aim, but did not name the operatives.
Witnesses said the bombing targeted the city’s residential Al-Shurta neighborhood, damaging buildings and raising clouds of black smoke.
Dr. Ahmad Taher of the Fallujah General Hospital said at least 20 people were killed, including women and children, and 29 others wounded. An ambulance rushing from the area of the blasts was hit by a shell, killing the driver, a paramedic and five patients inside the vehicle, said another hospital official, Hamid Salaman.
“The conditions here are miserable — an ambulance was bombed, three houses destroyed and men and women killed,” the hospital’s director, Rafayi Hayad Al-Esawi, told Al-Jazeera television by telephone.
Witnesses said US warplanes repeatedly swooped low over the city and that artillery units deployed on the outskirts of the city also opened fire. The explosions started at sunrise and continued for several hours.
One explosion went off in a market place in Fallujah as the first sellers had just begun to set up their stalls, wounding several people and shattering windows, witnesses said.
US forces pulled out of Fallujah in April after ending a three-week siege that left hundreds dead and a trail of devastation. The US Marines have not patrolled inside Fallujah since then and insurgents have strengthened their hold on the city.
The kidnappings of the Australians and the East Asians were announced in a statement purportedly from the Islamic Secret Army handed out in the insurgent bastion of Samarra. The statement gave Canberra a 24-hour deadline to end its interests in Iraq or see the hostages executed.
“One of our brave brigades ambushed civilian cars belonging to the American Army on the motorway from Baghdad to (the main northern city of) Mosul,” said the statement.
“It took four prisoners, two Australians and two East Asian nationals who were working as security contractors for important people,” it said. “We tell the infidels of Australia that they have 24 hours to leave Iraq or the two Australians will be killed without a second chance.”
Australia said it was urgently investigating the report. A spokesman for Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told Australian Associated Press the government was “moving heaven and earth” to investigate if Australia had become the latest nation on the list of those to have hostages taken in Iraq.
The kidnap report comes ahead of a closely fought general election on Oct. 9, where national security and Australia’s involvement in the US-led war on Iraq will be central issues.
Zarqawi’s group yesterday posted the video of the murder of the Turkish truck driver. The date on the video footage was Aug. 17, three days after the driver was kidnapped.
The video identified the victim as Durmus Kuldereli from Tarsus. He had been bringing building materials and machine parts from Turkey to a US base near Tikrit when he was kidnapped. The video shows three men knocking the victim to the ground and cutting his throat.
In Kuwait, on an 11th-hour diplomatic tour to win the release of two Italian women hostages, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini called for their immediate freedom at the landmark Great Mosque. A website published a purported ultimatum from the pair’s captors on Sunday threatening to kill the two 29-year-olds unless Rome withdrew its troops from Iraq within 24 hours.
“I seize this opportunity to call for the release of the two Italian hostages and all hostages in Iraq,” begged Frattini.
Meanwhile, France prepared to dig in for the long haul as uncertainty persisted over the fate of two missing journalists more than three weeks after they were kidnapped.
— Additional input from agencies
