US jets bomb Fallujah hide-out

US warplanes struck an alleged hide-out where operatives from an al Qaida-linked group had gathered today killing at least 20 people.

The Fallujah strikes sent a massive brown cloud over the city’s residential al-Shurta neighbourhood, flattening homes and hurling furniture into trees.

An ambulance ferrying the injured away after the blasts was also struck, killing the paramedic driving the car and five patients inside, said one hospital official, Hamid Salaman.

One explosion went off in a market place as the first sellers had just begun to set up their stalls, wounding several people and shattering windows, witnesses said.

At least 20 people were killed and 29 wounded, said Dr Ahmad Taher of the Fallujah General Hospital. Women and children were among the dead.

Fallujah’s hospital was overwhelmed with the injured.

Warplanes hit the city after “intelligence sources reported the presence of several al-Zarqawi operatives who have been responsible for numerous terrorist attacks against Iraqi civilians, Iraqi Security Forces and multinational forces,” the military said in a statement.

The military said reports indicated the strikes had achieved their aim, but did not name the operatives.

US forces pulled out of Fallujah in April after ending a three-week siege that left hundreds dead and a trail of devastation. The US Marines have not patrolled inside Fallujah since then and Sunni insurgents have strengthened their hold on the city.

“This strike further erodes the capability of the Zarqawi network and increases safety and security throughout Iraq,” a US military statement said.

A video posted on a web site in the name of the same group of militants – led by Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – purportedly shows the execution of a Turkish hostage.

A site known for posting the militant group’s messages, meanwhile, released the tape of a Turkish hostage being executed, dated August 17 – three days after the victim, Durmus Kumdereli, disappeared.

The authenticity of the tape could not be verified but appeared on a web site known for carrying Tawhid and Jihad statements.

In Ankara, a Turkish Foreign Ministry official said the ministry was aware of the video, but was unable to confirm Kumdereli’s death.

Turkey’s Anatolia news agency quoted Kumdereli’s wife in Tarsus, in southern Turkey, as saying her husband had taken the job – transporting goods to an American military base – to help pay off debts.

“They cannot be Muslims,” Melahat Kumdereli, 45, said. “A heathen would not do what they have done.”

Meanwhile, Italy’s foreign minister consulted with Kuwait’s prime minister and foreign ministry officials as part of feverish efforts to free Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both 29.

The two women work for the aid group ”Un Ponte Per …” (“A Bridge To…”) and were involved in school and water projects.

The women were seized on September 7, weeks after an Italian freelance journalist was abducted and slain in Iraq. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government had been sharply criticised for not doing enough to secure the journalist’s release.

Iraq’s Association of Muslims Scholars urged a group holding the two women hostage to set them free because they came to Iraq for humanitarian reasons.

Sheik Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi told reporters during a news conference that “I am calling on the kidnappers if they were Muslims to free them.”

The association – a conservative Sunni Muslim group that has worked for hostages’ release – strongly opposes the US presence in Iraq.

In a separate hostage crisis, France’s interior minister said today that the surge in fighting in Iraq has complicated French efforts to free two reporters held hostage there, with even the French Embassy in Baghdad coming under fire.

Dominique de Villepin gave no other fresh news about the fates of Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot. He reiterated that officials are working for their release and that there are signs that the men are still alive but did not elaborate.

“We are doing this in an extremely difficult context, because fighting is redoubling in Iraq,” he said. “It is a worrying cycle, but we want to believe that the release soon of our compatriots is possible,” he added.

In other developments:

:: South of Baghdad, assailants broke into a local police station in Latifiyah and forced the handful of officers inside to leave before blowing up the building, police said.

:: In northern Iraq, Governor Netshevan Ahmad survived an assassination attempt. He was on his way to work in Dahuk attempt when a roadside bomb went off as his car was passing by, said police Colonel Mohammed Doski. Nobody was injured in the attack.