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.