US launches major aerial bombardment in Iraq
US fighter jets pounded suspected rebel positions today in the largest aerial bombardment in central Iraq since President Bush declared the end of major combat in May.
The US military has reacted forcefully to an upsurge in guerrilla activity in central and northern Iraq.
On Monday, six insurgents were killed in gun battles and 99 suspects were reportedly detained in a series of sweeps.
Near Baqouba, 30 miles north-east of Baghdad, jets and Apache helicopter gunships today blasted abandoned buildings, walls and trees along a road where attacks have been so common that troops nicknamed it RPG Alley after the rocket-propelled grenades used by insurgents.
As part of the bombardment in the Baqouba area, fighter-bombers dropped 500 pound bombs and battle tanks fired their 120mm guns at suspected ambush sites, the military said.
Meanwhile, F-16 fighter aircraft dropped two bombs on insurgent targets near the town of Samara, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, the military said.
In northern Iraq, guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb, wounding two soldiers, the military said.
In a political blow to Iraq’s US-led administration, Marco Calamai, a special counsellor of the Coalition Provisional Authority, denounced the organisation.
Calamai said that he had become completely disillusioned with the US-led authority headed by Paul Bremer, and that only an interim authority headed by the United Nations could turn things around.
“The provisional authority simply doesn’t work,” Calamai said. “It’s neither fish nor fowl.
Reconstruction projects that were promised and financed have had practically no results.”
