US warplanes pound Iraqi rebel enclave after Samarra offensive

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - US warplanes pounded the Iraqi insurgent-held town of Fallujah for a third time in just over 24 hours in an ongoing push to wrest hotspots from rebel hands ahead of January elections.
The pre-dawn strike took place just hours after US and Iraqi officials said Samarra, another violence-wracked city, was largely under control after one of their largest post-war military offensives in the country.
Despite such attempts to crush the insurgency, militant groups continued holding scores of foreigners hostage, including a Jordanian, two French journalists and a British engineer who have all been threatened with death.
A senior US military official, however, warned that the militants` shock tactics, such as a wave of car bombings last week that killed scores of children, had the potential to backfire by uniting world opinion against them.
The outskirts of Fallujah were smouldering again after US warplanes bombed a building where the military said between 10 and 15 insurgents suspected of links with Iraq`s most wanted man Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi had been shifting weapons.
"A large number of enemy fighters are presumed killed," the army said, without giving an exact toll.
The latest onslaught followed two earlier missions around the Sunni Arab enclave west of Baghdad again targeting suspected Zarqawi hideouts.
In the latest attack, the US military insisted that special measures were taken to ensure no civilians were caught up in the blasts but it was impossible immediately to verify the casualty situation on the ground.
Several women and children were among those killed and wounded in an earlier strike Friday, according to hospital officials.
Meanwhile in Samarra, a key bastion in the Sunni insurgent belt north of the Iraqi capital, hospital officials were still attending the dead after a massive US-Iraqi offensive on Friday and into Saturday that killed at least 125 people.
Corpses in black bags at the city`s general hospital were being carried out for burial.
"We cleaned up the city from all the bad guys and terrorists," Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib told reporters on Saturday.
Speaking at city hall, Naqib said the mission was the most successful to date, and hinted at further action to regain control of other no-go areas.
Asked if Fallujah would be next on the list, the minister said: "I would like to say today rather than tomorrow... we would be able to do that.
"Fallujah has to come back to Iraq... we want all Iraqis to participate in the elections."
But a leading Sunni Muslim religious group questioned the logic of using brute force to achieve democratic goals.
"Resorting to iron and fire to prepare for elections is a flawed method," the Committee of Muslim Scholars said.
Desperate to thwart the US-led efforts to rebuild Iraq following last year`s invasion and the creation of an interim Iraqi government, militant groups have unleashed a campaign of bombings and kidnappings.
Militants paraded a Jordanian hostage in a videotape aired by Al-Arabiya television on Saturday with a threat to kill him in 72 hours if his employer fails to halt its Iraq operations.
The firm responded almost immediately by announcing it ceased all its activities in the war-torn country.
Another militant group posted a video on its website showing an Iraqi man being beheaded after "confessing" he was a contractor for US forces.
In London, a senior British Muslim negotiator expressed guarded optimism that hostage Ken Bigley will be freed, The Independent on Sunday reported, adding that the Irish government has stepped up efforts to secure the release of the 62-year-old civil engineer.
Indonesia was also awaiting news of two women held hostage in Iraq by kidnappers demanding the release of a jailed militant cleric after a pleas from the president of the world`s largest Muslim nation.
And French President Jacques Chirac slammed a failed private initiative to secure the release of two French journalists held hostage since August 20.
US Brigadier General Erv Lessel, chief spokesman for the US-led forces in Iraq, said the militants may regret their grisly actions.
"The tactic of increasingly violent and shocking terrorist acts has the potential to backfire by increasingly turning Iraqi and world public opinion against the terrorists," Lessel told AFP.
Meanwhile, a blame game over alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that have never been found continued, with The New York Times reporting that the administration of President George W. Bush was made aware as early as 2001 that aluminum tubes used as critical evidence to justify an invasion were most likely not for nuclear weapons.