New Government’s Tip Aids U.S. in Fallouja Airstrike

Acting on intelligence provided by the new Iraqi government, the U.S. military launched an airstrike Monday on a house in Fallouja, killing at least eight people.

The attack came amid unconfirmed reports that a U.S. Marine held hostage for two weeks was alive and in “a safe place.”

Monday’s aerial assault about 7:15 p.m. leveled a home in the southeastern Fallouja neighborhood of Shuhada. U.S. warplanes reportedly dropped six bombs on the house. Al Jazeera satellite news channel showed residents clearing rubble and angrily waving pieces of charred metal.

Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s office issued a statement Monday evening saying that local security forces provided “clear and compelling intelligence” to U.S. commanders, leading to the attack.

“There will be no more safe havens for terrorists,” the statement said. “The people of Iraq will not tolerate terrorist groups or those who collaborate with any other foreign fighters.”

It was the first time that the new government publicly acknowledged providing intelligence to U.S. forces that led to a specific strike.

The attack -- the fifth such U.S. strike in Fallouja in a little more than two weeks -- is likely to further enrage residents of the rebellious city west of Baghdad. Residents and officials in Fallouja have repeatedly said that the strikes have only hit civilians.

Allawi’s role in the bombing will almost certainly draw the ire of Falloujans.

After four American security contractors were killed and mutilated there, Fallouja-based insurgents waged intermittent battles with U.S. troops, culminating in a several-week siege of the city by Marines. The siege was lifted in April with the creation of the Fallouja Brigade -- a force led by former officers in Saddam Hussein’s army and stocked with many of the same local residents who had battled the Marines.

Some U.S. commanders complain that the brigade has allowed insurgent fighters to turn Fallouja into a safe zone from which to plan and launch attacks. The military has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to launch strikes independent of the Fallouja Brigade.

“The attacks are American attempts to destabilize Fallouja and undermine the role of the Fallouja Brigade and the police,” said Yassin Mekhlif, a relative of one of Monday’s victims. “They are shooting without informing the police. They did the same before the transfer of sovereignty and after. Nothing has changed.”

Al Jazeera also reported Monday that a statement received from a group calling itself Islamic Response claimed that Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was alive and safe. The statement gave no indications as to Hassoun’s whereabouts, or whether he had been released.

The statement was the latest in a series of conflicting accounts on the status of the 24-year-old Lebanese-born Marine, who disappeared from his base near Fallouja on June 19. On Saturday, a radical Islamic group calling itself the Ansar al Sunna Army claimed on websites that Hassoun had been beheaded, and promised video proof of the execution. That statement was denied Sunday. Monday’s statement indicated that Hassoun might still be alive, but remained in captivity.

Elsewhere in Iraq, five Iraqi civilians were wounded in a roadside bombing early Monday morning in the northern city of Mosul. A second roadside bomb attack targeting a U.S. convoy near the southern city of Samawa killed one Iraqi civilian.

A rocket attack on a police station in Basra struck a nearby house, killing one and wounding three.

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Times wires services and a special correspondent in Fallouja contributed to this report.