21 Qaeda fighters killed in US air blitz: Iraq sheikh

US soldiers secure an abandoned house as their comrades search it

BAGHDAD (AFP) — A massive US air blitz on Al-Qaeda targets south of Baghdad killed at least 21 militants while ground forces have wrested control of six villages in central Iraq from the jihadist network, officials said on Friday.

The operations form part of Phantom Phoenix, a major assault launched on Tuesday by US and Iraqi forces on members of Osama bin Laden's extremist group, considered by US commanders to be the biggest threat to stability in Iraq.

In one of the heaviest aerial bombardments since the US-led invasion in 2003, US bombers and jets on Thursday dropped 47,500 pounds (21,500 kilograms) of explosives on 47 targets in a 10-minute blitz on Arab Jabour, a Sunni rural area on the southern outskirts of Baghdad.

The full impact of the strikes has yet to be detailed by the US military but a tribal sheikh said an Al-Qaeda leader in the area had been killed along with 20 other militants.

"Our information confirmed that Walid Khudair, also known as al-Jahash, leader of Al-Qaeda in the southern belts of Baghdad, was killed in the air strikes," Mustaf al-Jabouri, leader of the anti-Qaeda "Awakening" group in Arab Jabour, said on Friday.

"Twenty other terrorists were also killed," Sheikh Jabouri, a tribal leader, told AFP by telephone, adding that no civilian casualties were reported.

The US military said it could not yet assess whether militants were killed but confirmed there had been no reports of civilian casualties.

A US military commander Colonel Terry Ferrell, told a Baghdad press conference Friday via a video link that the strikes had targeted roadside bombs and arms caches rather than people.

"We believe we were able to destroy several major improvised explosive devices (roadside bombs)," said Ferrell. "We believe we were also able to identify and destroy several weapons caches."

Another commander, Colonel Peter Donnelly, told the news conference that 51 targets had initially been identified in the Arab Jabour area but fears that civilians could be killed had forced them to abort attacks on four of them.

"We hit 47 of the planned targets. The remaining targets were not hit due to collateral damage (civilian casualty) concerns. An unmanned aerial vehicle detected civilians and a vehicle in the area, so those targets were not hit."

Ferrell said the air strike formed part of Phantom Phoenix, which was aimed at "allowing us to move forces forward into areas that we've not previously been."

"It's all about finding the enemy where the enemy wants to go. It's all under the umbrella of the operation of denying him sanctuary anywhere that he wants in this country," he said.

Iraqi army Major General Abdul Karim al-Rubaie, director of operations in central Diyala province, said six villages near the town of Muqdadiyah -- known as the "breadbasket" area of Iraq -- had been taken over from Al-Qaeda by Iraqi and US forces.

At least 10 members of Al-Qaeda were killed and 20 suspected militants were arrested in the sweep, he told AFP in the provincial capital Baquba, about 60 kilometre (35 miles) north of Baghdad.

"The villages have been under the control of Al-Qaeda for a long time," said Rubaie. "We have taken them back and Al-Qaeda has been chased out."

The US military earlier Friday reported two Al-Qaeda fighters killed and 11 suspected militants detained in operations in the central and northern cities of Samarra, Tikrit and Mosul.

Other commanders had earlier reported that at least 20 militants have been killed and dozens detained, mainly in Diyala, since the start of Phantom Phoenix.

Nine American soldiers have been killed since Phantom Phoenix was launched, including six who were blown up when they entered a booby-trapped house at an unidentified location in Diyala province, the US military has announced.

In Baghdad, meanwhile, a suicide car bombing outside a bakery in eastern Al-Gadir neighbourhood on Friday evening killed four civilians and wounded at least eight others, security officials said.
AFP