Air strikes kill 16 as US targets militant meeting

US FORCES launched air strikes on Fallujah yesterday, targeting what they said was a meeting of key loyalists of their top foe in Iraq, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Iraqi doctors at Fallujah Hospital said 16 Iraqis were killed, including women and children. The Health Ministry in Baghdad put the Iraqi toll at 20 men. But the US said its intelligence suggested only Zarqawi followers were killed.

Meanwhile, the Italian government stepped up its efforts to free two of its citizens who had been taken hostage as a video purporting to show the beheading of a Turkish driver kidnapped in Iraq last month surfaced yesterday on the website of an Islamic militant group.