15 family members killed in US bomb attack

Fifteen members of one Iraqi family died when US forces dropped two tons of bombs on what they claimed was a militant safehouse in Fallujah.

The Fallujah attack yesterday reduced the house to a 30-foot-deep pit of sand and rubble.

It was the fifth air strike in the past two weeks in the area where the US military says Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi’s network has safehouses.

Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi issued an unprecedented statement saying his government provided intelligence to the US military for the strike.

The interim government has been trying to work out how to deal with the insurgents, and the air strike came just hours after it postponed an announcement of new security laws to deal with them.

In Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, rescue workers picked up body parts after the US air strike, witnesses said.

Dr Diaa Jumaili of Fallujah Hospital said 10 bodies had arrived there, most of them dismembered.

The military said it had dropped four 500-pound bombs and two 1,000-pound bombs. The attack used guided weapons and underscored the resolve of coalition and Iraqi forces “to jointly destroy terrorist networks within Iraq”, the military said.

Al-Zarqawi, said to be connected to al-Qaida, is believed to be behind a series of co-ordinated attacks on police and security forces that killed 100 people only days before US forces handed over power to an Iraqi interim government.

The attacks have led to fears that religious fanatics and Saddam Hussein loyalists may be joining forces to fight both the multi-national force and the new Iraqi government.

Allawi has promised tough measures against the insurgents, who have been creating chaos since the fall of Saddam’s regime 14 months ago.

The announced cooperation with the air strike appeared to be a first step toward that.

In a statement soon after the attack, Allawi said Iraqi forces provided the intelligence for the location of the al-Zarqawi safehouse so the strike could “terminate those terrorists, whose booby-trapped cars and explosive belts have harvested the souls of innocent Iraqis without discrimination, destroying Iraqi schools, hospitals and police stations”.

Allawi appealed to all Iraqis to report the activities of insurgents.

An Iraqi militant group yesterday denied reports it had killed a US Marine it was holding captive. In a statement sent to Al-Jazeera television, the group calling itself “Islamic Response,” said Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun, a U.S. Marine of Lebanese heritage, was safe at a location it did not identify.

On Saturday, a Web site posting claimed Hassoun had been beheaded. On Sunday, a second Web posting on another Internet site disavowed that message, leaving Hassoun’s fate unclear.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s vital oil exports were cut nearly in half as workers struggled to repair a key pipeline shut down after looters broke into it.

The US military announced that three US marines assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were killed in western Iraq. Two died in action yesterday in the Anbar province, while a third later died of his wounds.