Fallouja Casualties Disputed After Airstrikes on Militants

Military officials said U.S. airstrikes on the city of Fallouja on Saturday were aimed at destroying a hide-out for members of Abu Musab Zarqawi’s extremist group.

The Jordanian-born militant’s group is believed to be behind scores of bombings, ambushes and abductions in Iraq, including the recent kidnapping of two Americans and a Briton from their home in Baghdad. The Americans were beheaded on successive days last week; the fate of the Briton, 62-year-old Kenneth Bigley, remains unknown.

Accounts of the death toll in Saturday’s airstrikes varied. Marine officials said seven insurgents died, although hospital officials said at least eight Iraqis, including women and children, were killed. Early today, Associated Press put the casualties at 16 dead and 37 wounded.

The fighting in Fallouja came as five U.S. troops were reported killed and six people were shot to death in Baghdad in the latest attack on recruits to Iraqi security forces.

Four Marines died Friday. Three of them -- Lance Cpl. Aaron Boyles, 24, of Alameda, Calif.; Sgt. Timothy Folmar, 21, of Sonora, Texas; and Lance Cpl. Ramon Mateo, 20, of Suffolk, N.Y. -- died as result of hostile fire in Al Anbar province, which includes Fallouja. Boyles and Mateo were based at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif. Folmar was assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton.

A fourth Marine, 2nd Lt. Ryan Leduc, 28, of Pana, Ill., died as result of a noncombat vehicle accident in Rutbah, the military said. He was assigned to the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

An Army soldier was killed at 6:45 a.m. Saturday in Baghdad when his vehicle struck an explosive device, according to a coalition statement. His name was withheld pending notification of family members.

The attack on applicants to the Iraqi national guard occurred about 8 a.m. Saturday, in almost the exact spot in central Baghdad where a car bomb targeting recruits had exploded Wednesday. That blast killed six and injured more than 50.

A witness to Saturday’s attack said a minibus full of recruits was parked and waiting for another passenger when a black car sped down the wrong side of the road and gunmen raked the bus with small-arms fire, killing the driver and five passengers.

“We discovered that they were young men from the other provinces and they were trying to get a job in the Iraqi army,” said witness Shimran Abbas, 47, a gasoline dealer. “I don’t know how the attackers recognized them. For sure they had solid information.”

Fallouja has been too volatile lately for ground forces to enter, but the U.S.-led coalition is trying to root out insurgents before national elections scheduled for January.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said last week that pockets of resistance in a few places might be too persistent to allow safe polling. However, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has vowed that every eligible Iraqi will be able to vote.

The first of the airstrikes early Saturday was launched in retaliation for rocket-propelled-grenade and machine-gun attacks on an armored column of Marines that was trying to destroy a large barrier booby-trapped with explosive devices, a coalition statement said.

First Lt. Lyle L. Gilbert, a coalition spokesman, said that airstrike killed seven insurgents but caused “no noncombatant injuries or deaths.” Gilbert said the airstrike did not involve bombers.

Later airstrikes targeted what coalition authorities said was “a known terrorist meeting site in central Fallouja” of Zarqawi supporters.

“There were no innocent civilians reported in the immediate area at the time of the strike,” a coalition statement said.

Dr. Abdalrahman Mohammed of Fallouja Hospital said eight people were killed in the air attacks, among them two women, three children and an elderly man.

Reuters TV showed images of an injured baby being carried out of the rubble of a bombed house and of a woman covered in blood, who was alive, being pulled from the wreckage.

The coalition said in a statement that it had taken extra precautions to minimize civilian casualties.

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Special correspondents Saif Rasheed in Baghdad and Hamid Suleibi in Fallouja contributed to this report.