- (AFP) -- The US-led coalition has called in air support
against targets in central Baghdad for the first time since its spring
invasion, deafening the capital with repeated salvoes of aerial cannon
fire as it pressed a new get-tough message.
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- In one of a spate of barrages that punctured the evening
festivities that normally characterise the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan,
nearly 40 separate rounds were audible Tuesday across the city.
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- A US military spokesman said five locations from which
mortar or rocket attacks had been launched on the coalition's sprawling,
heavily fortified administrative compound were targeted in the evening's
raids.
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- "These targets were struck using an aerial platform
with 105 mm cannon fire and 40 mm gunfire," the spokesman said without
specifying whether the aircraft were fixed-wing or helicopters.
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- "These locations may be abandoned buildings, they
may be overgrown.
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- "The coalition needs to make sure that its soldiers
are safe and cannot be threatened by mortar and rocket attacks."
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- The spokesman said that to his knowledge no resistance
had been put up to the US show of strength and no casualties had resulted.
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- Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, commanding general
of the US 1st Armoured Division, said coalition forces had also conducted
a raid on the home of a man suspected of storing illegal weapons and a
column of 17 Humvees was seen by an AFP staffer in the central Karada district
of the city.
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- The supect was captured and a dozen rocket-propelled
grenade launchers were seized along with two rifles.
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- "Throughout this operation we are communicating
with the Iraqi people to let them know that these combat operations are
being executed on their behalf, for it is only in a safe and secure environment
that they can achieve the kind of life they deserve," said Dempsey.
-
- In recent days, US commanders have taken off the gloves
in their battle with insurgents, resorting to air strikes and heavy artillery
against suspected safe houses, arms caches and underground bomb factories.
-
- Air support has been called in several times north and
west of the capital, but Tuesday's was only the second reported incidence
in Baghdad itself.
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- On November 13, an AC-130 Hercules gunship was used against
a hiding place used by anti-US insurgents in the southern suburb of Dora.
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- The US spokesman said Tuesday's raids were part of Operation
Iron Hammer, a massive military offensive launched in and around Baghdad
on November 12.
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- "It is basically no different than in the previous
phases of the operation. It's just the case that it's closer into the centre,"
he said.
-
- Further north outside Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit,
US forces pounded positions used by insurgents with mortar fire for a third
consecutive night late Tuesday in another show of strength.
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- A platoon positioned itself in a dusty field outside
the town, to fire mortar rounds from atop armoured personnel carriers,
flanked by combat tanks.
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- To boost the menacing effect of the display of firepower,
the mortars were fired two at a time in rapid succession, targeting fields
the military says had been used in attacks against coalition forces.
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- Flashes lit up the night sky and huge explosions rocked
the ground.
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- "We are claiming the ground the enemy used in the
past," said Lieutenant Colin Crow, the commander of the mortar platoon
from the 4th Infantry Division's 1-22 battalion.
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- "The enemy will think twice about using that terrain
again, knowing we can hit it with indirect fire."
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- The Tikrit-based 4th ID troops have been targeting suspected
insurgent positions with renewed vigour since launching Operation Ivy Cyclone
II on Sunday.
-
- Troops have fired two satellite-guided missiles, several
helicopter-launched Hellfire missiles, as well as mortar and tank rounds,
at houses, training grounds and other positions they say are used by former
regime loyalists.
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- Another senior US commander defended the new get-tough
tactics Tuesday.
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- "Now it's no holds barred. We use whatever weapons
that are necessary to take the fight to the enemy," said Major General
Charles Swannack, whose 82nd Airborne Division patrols Al-Anbar province
west of the capital, another hotbed of anti-US insurgency.
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- The general insisted that with the accuracy of modern
weaponry, there was minimal danger of collateral damage.
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- But analysts warned the use of such massive firepower
in the heart of the capital risked alienating the very people whose support
the coalition professed to seek to win.
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- "The results will be felt soon with increased radicalization
among the populace and maybe some extra incentive to rally the resistance,"
said Loulouwa al-Rashid, Iraq specialist with the Brussels-based think-tank,
the International Crisis Group.
-
- "Throwing Baghdad back into a war will not generate
sympathies," she said.
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