US warplane bombs Fallujah
A US warplane fired missiles today to destroy an anti-aircraft gun mounted on the back of a truck in the restive city of Fallujah, the US military said.
Militants “attempted to fire on one of our aviation assets and we responded with missile fire,” said Lt. Col. Thomas V. Johnson, a Marine spokesman in Fallujah, about 40 miles west of Baghdad.
Witnesses said the plane dropped at least two bombs in the eastern neighbourhood of al-Askari.
Coalition officials believe Fallujah has become a safe-haven for insurgents and Islamic extremists since U.S. Marines abandoned their three-week siege of the city in late April and handed over security to an Iraqi force, the Fallujah Brigade.
Since pulling back from the city, the military has been limited to using long distance strikes to hit targets here, and has done so repeatedly.
On Wednesday, US warplanes and tanks bombed Fallujah for more than two hours, killing at least four people, hospital officials and residents said. The US military said it had launched Wednesday’s attacks to strike at insurgents based here.
