Ten reported dead as US jets attack house

A military strike was launched on a home in the Iraqi city of Fallujah today, the United States command said.

At least 10 people were killed, according to hospital and local officials.

Explosions rocked the restive city and angry crowds gathered near the building that was hit.

Earlier attacks have targeted safehouses used by the network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant blamed for masterminding car bombings and other attacks in Iraq.

Iraq’s interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has promised more intense cooperation between local leaders and the Americans in rooting out terrorism.

The US-led command refused to provide further details. It referred all calls to the Iraqi Defence Ministry, which had no comment.

“We heard the sound of jetfighters and then we heard four explosions in the house occupied by civilian residents,” Lt Saad Khalaf, of the Fallujah Brigade, a defence force which guards the city. He said that about 10 people were killed inside the house.

“After the explosion, we rushed to the hit house and we started to search for the bodies and we could find remains that were buried later on,” Khalaf said.

Angry crowds gathered around the house and they were chanting “God is great”.

US Marines besieged the city for several weeks last spring and then handed over security to a new “Fallujah Brigade” which was made up of local residents and commanded by officers from Saddam’s former army. Many of those who fought the Marines joined the brigade.

Allawi issued an unprecedented statement July 5 after the last strike on an al-Zarqawi safehouse, saying his government provided intelligence for its location 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”.