US jets blast suspected insurgent safe-house

American fighter jets flattened a suspected insurgent safe house near the Syrian border, the US military said today, as hundreds of US troops searched remote desert villages house by house for followers of Iraq’s most wanted militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

American forces have met little resistance since the first two days of Operation Matador, aimed at clearing a region believed to be a haven for foreign fighters slipping over the border from Syria, the military said in a statement.