A U.S. military plane fired missiles Saturday into a residential neighborhood in Fallujah, killing at least 16 people and leveling houses there, police and residents said. A U.S. official said the target was a hideout of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s terror network.
It was the first significant U.S. military action in the city since Marines ended a bloody three-week siege against insurgents. Since the U.S. forces left, residents have said that extremist influence in the Sunni Muslim city, west of Baghdad, has only grown. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, coalition deputy operations chief, said the attack struck a hideout of al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant thought to be linked to al-Qaida and said to behind numerous bombings and other attacks in Iraq. Full Story
