9/2/2004 9:41:00 AM GMT
Seventeen, including up to three children, have been killed in a U.S. air raid late Wednesday on the Iraqi city of Falluja, hospital officials said.
Six others are reported wounded in the attack, which witnesses said hit a house in the south of the city.
U.S. officials were cited as saying the raid was aimed at followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Mr. Zarqawi has been accused of leading the resistance to the occupation of Iraq.
"All the wounded are families. Among the dead, there could be two or three children but the bodies are torn to pieces and it's difficult to tell," said Dr. Seifedden Taha, from the Falluja general hospital.
Witnesses told the agency that two houses were demolished in the attack, which happened around midnight local time (2000 GMT).
A U.S. military statement, quoted by the AP agency, claimed that the strike was a deliberate attack on a purport safe house.
It also claimed that the attack was undertaken based on various Iraqi and occupation intelligence sources.
Fallujah, about 40 miles (65km) west of Baghdad, has been a flashpoint town and centre of some of the strongest resistance to the occupation forces.
Seven Foreign Hostages released
Earlier Wednesday, seven foreign hostages were freed after their employer paid U.S. $500,000 ransom to their kidnappers.
A Kuwaiti transport company- the employer of the seven truck drivers- said Wednesday that it had paid a ransom of more than $500,000 to the captors for the release of the seven hostages who were freed after 43 days of captivity.
The three Kenyans, three Indians and an Egyptian arrived at the Kuwait airport yesterday where they were met by diplomats and officials from the Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company.
Another group said on Wednesday that it had abducted a Jordanian and warned anyone against co-operating with U.S. occupation forces.
In Qatar, French Foreign Minister urged the group kidnapping the two French journalists to release them, also Pope John Paul has echoed Muslim leaders in demanding their release.
"I still have hope. I hope logic will prevail," Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told Al Jazeera television after talks with Qatar's Foreign Minister on the fourth leg of a mission to save reporters Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot.
Paris has refused to meet the kidnappers’ demands and revoke the law banning Muslims’ headscarves in state schools.
Also Wednesday, the first meeting of the Iraqi National Council, which will act as a watchdog body over the interim government, was marred by a nearby mortar attack, the U.S. military said. The National Council had already chosen its president, Mr. Fuad Masoum.