At Least 57 Iraqis Killed In US-led Assaults On Insurgents

by Mujahid Mohammed
TALL AFAR, Iraq, Sept 9 (AFP) - At least 57 people were killed when US-led forces spearheaded assaults on Iraq`s northern trouble spot of Tall Afar and the notorious insurgent bastion of Fallujah, a hospital official said Thursday.
Meanwhile, Rome shifted into diplomatic overdrive in an effort to save two kidnapped women aid workers snatched from their Baghdad office in broad daylight, two weeks after Islamic captors killed an Italian journalist.
As helicopters and planes flew overhead, the US army sealed off Tall Afar after 13 hours of bombardment and fierce fighting that the head of the local hospital said had left 45 people dead and more than 80 wounded.
The bombing, which began at 2:00 am (2200 GMT Wednesday) ended at 11:00 am, as helicopters and warplanes flew overhead.
Fighting pitted US soldiers and insurgents in the Hassan Koi and Serra districts of the town, 450 kilometres (280 miles) north of Baghdad.
Ibrahim Arafat, deputy governor of the province, said he had negotiated an end to the bombardment and a deal to allow ambulances to reach the hospital, as well as to be able to visit it to assess the situation.
Dr Fawzi Ahmed, director of the town`s hospital, said late Thursday night: "We have received 45 bodies of people hit in various parts of their bodies, and more than 80 people are hospitalized."
Health ministry officials had earlier said at least 28 were dead and more than 70 wounded.
Although the town`s police chief said 13 policemen were killed and wounded, the US military reported no coalition casualties and it was unclear if that number was included in the toll given by the Iraqis.
The US military said up to 57 "terrorists" were killed in the clashes against insurgents, the army said.
The deputy mayor of the town, Mohammed Amin was also admitted to hospital with injuries during the air strikes, said a doctor.
US troops announced through loudspeakers that for five days, residents would not be allowed to enter the town, which they charge is infested with fighters who infiltrated from Syria.
The Iraqi Red Crescent was setting a camp just outside Tall Afar for local residents whose houses were destroyed or who are fleeing the combat zone.
The military said operations were continuing to "remove the terrorist threat that has forced hundreds of people from their homes" and that the highway --- a site of numerous roadside bombings and mortar attacks -- had been secured.
Coalition forces were attacked by insurgents using the Al-Huda mosque as cover, to which they responded with "precise and accurate fire".
In Fallujah, the greatest symbol of resistance to US occupation in Iraq, jets pounded the city in a relentless series of raids before dawn on Thursday, killing 12 Iraqis, including five children and two women, a doctor said.
The military has classified Fallujah as a den of foreign terror networks and said the latest raid was a "precision strike" on a hideout used by militants loyal to Iraq`s most wanted man, alleged Al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has a 25-million-dollar price on his head.
Meanwhile, fears that the town of Samarra could become another Fallujah were eased following a deal between the US military and local leaders, allowing US troops into the northern Sunni Muslim bastion for the first time since June.
The Fallujah and Tall Afar raids are part of a string of operations carried out by US-backed Iraqi national guardsmen to crack down on rebel strongholds.
But UN Secretary General Kofi Annan suggested that a political approach might be successful and in a report urged a "commitment to stop relying solely or mainly on the threats or actual use of armed force."
On the hostage crisis, Italy`s junior foreign minister Margherita Boniver was to arrive in Jordan Friday on the first leg of a regional tour aimed at winning the release of two female aid workers kidnapped on Tuesday.
Boniver said she was desperate to raise "awareness in the Arab world about how monstrous the kidnapping of these two women was".
As the Italian administration swung into crisis mode, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was to hold talks Friday with Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar, who is on a European tour to muster support for his war-torn country.
In Beirut, the Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah added its voice to the calls for the Italians` release.
It pointed out the services they had rendered to the Arab people and said the charity for which they work, Un Ponte Per Baghdad (A Bridge to Baghdad), "has spoken out against American aggression in Iraq."
The coordinator for charitable activities in Iraq said he had resigned and left the country because he no longer felt safe.
Jean-Dominique Bunel had already said most of the 50 aid groups with foreign staff were planning to leave Iraq after the two 29-year-olds were snatched in broad daylight in a quiet residential neighbourhood.
"I have resigned. I was threatened and it was agreed that I was in danger and they rushed me out," Bunel told AFP on his way back to France.
Two months from the US presidential election and with the debate over the merits of the war to oust Saddam Hussein showing no let-up, a top UN weapons inspector challenged one of Washington`s key justifications for war.
A new report by Dimitri Perricos said that despite US claims, inspectors found no evidence that the former dictator`s regime had developed pilotless airplanes that could drop chemical and biological weapons on distant targets.
In further embarrassment for the US administration, a general investigating the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal said the Pentagon was probing the imprisonment of as many as 100 "ghost detainees" in secret US custody in Iraq.