US pounds Iraqi targets with massive bombs
The US Air Force used some of the largest weapons in its inventory to attack targets in central Iraq as part of the escalating crackdown on suspected guerrilla strongholds.
Two 2,000 pound satellite-guided bombs were dropped last night near Baqouba, 30 miles north-east of Baghdad on “camps suspected to have been used for bomb-making,” said Major Gordon Tate, a spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division.
He said that near the northern city of Kirkuk, fighter-bombers dropped 1,000 pound bombs on ”terrorist targets.”
Tate said it was unclear whether the air strikes had caused any casualties on the ground.
A British civilian convoy was targeted by a roadside bomb in Basra today and a vehicle was damaged, said British military spokesman Major Hisham Halawi.
The US military said the continuing attacks were part of the new aggressive stance named Operation Iron Hammer taken this month in response to an upsurge in guerrilla activity and a sharp rise in the number of coalition casualties.
An Arabic language newspaper, meanwhile, published a statement signed by Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath Party declaring that armed resistance would continue despite plans by the US led coalition to accelerate the transfer of power to Iraqis.
The statement said the new US timetable for handing over sovereignty “will not influence the nature of the confrontation and its course set forth by the Iraqi resistance”.
“Those who occupy Iraq, be it through multinational forces under whatever arrangements, will be treated as occupiers that should be legal targets for resistance,” the statement said.
In the southern city of Diwaniyah, gunmen assassinated the education ministry’s director general for the province, government officials said today.
Hmud Kadhim was shot to death by unknown assailants on Tuesday.
Guerrillas have warned that they will assassinate Iraqis who collaborate with occupation authorities, including officials such as Kadhim whose job made him one of the top officials in Diwaniyah province.
