BAGHDAD, July 18 (AFP) - The US-led military said Sunday an air strike on the flashpoint Iraqi city of Fallujah was directed at a den of about 25 people with suspected links to Islamic fugitive Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.
"The strike, conducted at 2:03 am (2203 GMT Saturday)... destroyed defensive fighting positions and trench lines near the remains of a house and a foreign fighter checkpoint," said Brigadier General Erv Lessel, the deputy director for the multinational force in Iraq.
About 25 people suspected of having ties with the Jordanian-born militant were at the site just before the attack was launched, Lessel said in a statement, describing it as a "precision operation" based on US and Iraqi intelligence sources.
Hospital officials in Fallujah, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, said 11 people were killed, including a women, in the overnight onslaught.