PM defends Fallujah strike

IRAQ’S prime minister yesterday defended a US air strike that killed 22 people in Fallujah, but Iraqi officers in the town said the dead included women and children, but no foreign Muslim militants.

“We know a house which had been used by terrorists has been hit. We welcome this hit on terrorists anywhere in Iraq,” interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi told a news conference.

However, Fallujah’s police chief and a senior officer in the Fallujah Brigade in charge of security in the fiercely anti-US town denied foreign fighters had operated from the house.

“We inspected the damage, we looked at the bodies of women, children and theelderly. This was a family,” said Brigadier Nouri Aboud of the Fallujah Brigade.

Mr Allawi said the US had informed the government before carrying out Saturday’s air strike on what it said was a safe house used by militants led byAbu Musab al-Zarqawi, described by the Americans as al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq.

“There is no sign of foreigners having lived in the house. Zarqawi and his men have no presence in Fallujah,” said Brigadier Aboud.

“We have not found any trace of an armed group there,” Captain Mohammed Abdul Karim said.

“The raid targeted a poor neighbourhood in southern Fallujah and hit the house of a man named Jassem Mohammed Fayyad, killing several members of his family and his neighbours,” Capt Karim said.

The raid shattered a lull in Fallujah and fuelled tensions before the formal end of Iraq’s US-led occupation on June 30.