- FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) --
U.S. warplanes killed a family of six in raids against rebels led by al
Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, while a top international aid agency suspended
Iraq operations on Wednesday after its manager was kidnapped.
-
- A Reuters witness saw a man and a woman and four children,
two boys and two girls, being pulled out of the rubble of a razed home
in the rebel-held city of Falluja, about 30 miles west of Baghdad.
-
- The U.S. military denied a family of six was killed,
saying it launched four strikes against safehouses used by Zarqawi's fighters.
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- "Intelligence sources indicate a known Zarqawi propagandist
is passing false reports to the media," it said in a statement.
-
- Reuters television footage showed men chanting "There
is no God but Allah!" as they carried the body of the father of the
family of six.
-
- "Is this the gift that (interim Iraqi Prime Minister)
Iyad Allawi is giving to the people of Falluja?" asked one man, pointing
to the small bodies of two of the children lying in the trunk of a car.
"Every day they strike Falluja."
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- SAMARRA CLASHES
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- At least eight civilians were killed and 11 U.S. soldiers
wounded in clashes in Samarra, a northern town the U.S. military said it
had pacified following an offensive earlier this month.
-
- Two car bombs killed a child and also wounded a civilian
translator in the center of the town, the U.S. military said. A police
official said eight civilians had been killed and 12 wounded in clashes.
-
- Care International, an aid agency working in Iraq on
health and water projects, suspended operations after its British-Iraqi
manager in Iraq, Margaret Hassan, was abducted and said it might pull out
of the country altogether.
-
- Hours after she was abducted on Tuesday, Hassan, who
has lived in Iraq for 30 years, was shown sitting alone and anxious in
a video aired on Al Jazeera television, which said an unnamed group claimed
to be holding her.
-
- "At the moment we have suspended operations, and
we will continue to pull out of the country unless we can resolve this
issue," Care International chief Geoffrey Dennis told BBC radio.
-
- Scores of foreigners have been kidnapped since April
and at least 35 have been killed, several of them beheaded.
-
- The U.S. military says its almost nightly strikes on
Falluja are carefully targeted at fighters led by Jordanian militant Zarqawi,
who it says is holed up in the city.
-
- But residents say they know nothing of Zarqawi -- some
even doubt his existence -- and that the U.S. raids kill civilians.
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- ALLAWI WARNING
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- Allawi has warned Falluja's residents to hand over Zarqawi's
followers or face military action. He has said he remains open to talks,
but Western diplomats in Baghdad say an offensive against the town of 300,000
is becoming increasingly likely.
-
- In other violence, an adviser to Allawi's political party
was killed in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad on Wednesday, an Interior
Ministry spokesman said.
-
- Iraq's U.S.-backed interim government is struggling to
restore order to allow reconstruction of a country ravaged by years of
war and U.N. sanctions and to allow the first democratic elections in decades
to go ahead on time in January.
-
- British Prime Minister Tony Blair told parliament he
expected an upsurge of violence in Iraq before the elections.
-
- "This has nothing to do with American (presidential)
elections. It has everything to do, however, with the Iraqi elections,"
he said.
-
- Blair said he had not decided yet on a U.S. request to
shift British troops to more dangerous parts of the country to free up
U.S. forces for other action.
-
- Some accuse him of having already agreed to do so to
help President Bush before the Nov. 2 U.S. presidential election, in which
Iraq has been a major campaign issue.
-
- The third U.S. soldier to face court martial over mistreatment
of prisoners in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, a scandal that sparked worldwide
outrage, pleaded guilty to abusing prisoners, including forcing three to
masturbate.
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- Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick is expected to be sentenced
on Thursday in the court martial at a military base in Baghdad.
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- Iraq would urge other countries to help it improve security
and prepare for elections at an international conference in Egypt next
month, officials said.
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- The United Nations, European Union, Arab League, Organization
of Islamic Countries, Group of Eight top industrialized countries and China
are among those planning to send representatives.
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