Dozens dead as US jets pound Iraqi insurgents
US warplanes pounded the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah and a northern town astride a major smuggling route today, killing dozens of people in the two attacks.
The jets hammered Tal Afar, near the border with Syria, in an operation intended to return the town 30 miles west of Mosul to control of the interim Iraqi government.
The military said initial reports put the number of insurgents dead at 57. At least a dozen civilians were also killed in the attack, Iraq’s Interior Ministry said.
American warplanes fired missiles on a building used by associates of Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the third day of strikes in Fallujah, a hotbed of Sunni Muslim insurgents bent on driving coalition forces from the country.
At least five were killed, including a woman and a child, said Dr Ahmad Thair of the Fallujah General Hospital.
Meanwhile, several explosions echoed across the Iraqi capital , and smoke rose above the heavily fortified Green Zone, witnesses said.
