FALLUJAH, Iraq, Aug 25 (AFP) - Four people were killed and seven injured as US planes and tanks pounded suspected insurgent positions in the flashpoint city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, on Wednesday, hospital sources in the city said.
"The bodies of four people were brought here and seven injured were admitted to the hospital," Dr Adel Ahmed, from Fallujah general hospital said. He said it was not possible to say whether insurgents were among the victims.
A US military spokesman said the operation had begun first thing in the morning and continued until about 2:00 pm (1000 GMT).
"We've got some strikes against anti-Iraqi force positions in the city using tanks and aircraft... We have hit some positions," Lieutenant Colonel T.V. Johnson told AFP.
He said he had no information about casualties on the ground.
A taxi driver, Osman Ahmed, 25, said he had been to Al-Askari district of the city which had been the target of US fire, to help evacuate a family. "I saw at least three houses that had been destroyed," he told AFP.
Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, US planes bombed a suspected foreign fighters' hide-out near Fallujah, in a raid sanctioned by Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
In the last two months the US military has conducted several air strikes in the Sunni Muslim bastion, where US troops have faced some of the toughest resistance to their continued presence in Iraq.