21 Qaeda fighters killed in US air blitz: Iraq sheikh
Sunday, 13 January 2008
BAGHDAD, Jan 12 (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 Friday.
The operations form part of Phantom Phoenix, a major assault launched 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 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 Friday.
"Twenty other terrorists were also killed," Sheikh Jabouri, a tribal leader, told the news agency by telephone, adding that no civilian casualties were reported.
The operations form part of Phantom Phoenix, a major assault launched 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 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 Friday.
"Twenty other terrorists were also killed," Sheikh Jabouri, a tribal leader, told the news agency by telephone, adding that no civilian casualties were reported.