Fallujah raid hits wedding party. At least 2,000 US and Iraqi forces are taking part in the campaign.
The US military said what it called a "precision strike" targeted a hideout used by associates of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But local hospital doctors reported that the raid had struck a house shortly after a wedding party. The groom is said to have been killed, while his bride was injured. Women and children were also among the wounded. US forces have stepped up operations in Falluja in recent weeks in a bid to regain control there ahead of planned national elections in Iraq in January. Friday also saw US forces report that they had made one of the biggest seizures of illicit arms to date - of 1,500 artillery shells - when they stopped a truck in Baghdad. Artillery shells are commonly used in roadside bombs. Friday morning's raid on the house in north-west Falluja happened shortly after 0100 local time (2200 GMT). Reuters news agency reported rescuers clawing through the rubble with their bare hands, chanting "There is no God but God" as the body of a man was pulled out. Doctors at the main city hospital said a father and his seven sons, as well as other wedding guests, were among the dead. Thursday is traditionally the day for holding weddings in Iraq, says the BBC's Karen Allen in Baghdad. However, in a statement the US military insisted: "Credible intelligence sources confirmed Zarqawi leaders were meeting at the safe-house at the time of the strike." Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad ("Unity and Holy War") group has been blamed for multiple attacks and beheadings of hostages. The US statement said several senior Zarqawi associates have been killed in more than a dozen strikes over the past month. It said those killed include key lieutenants Abu Anas al-Shami (described as Zarqawi's number two and his spiritual adviser) and Mohammed al-Lubnani. The BBC's Jennifer Glasse, with US marines outside Falluja, says Iraqi special forces are being trained to accompany the US in an anticipated ground offensive into the city. On Thursday, the US military announced that 59 arrests had been made so far in a three-day-old campaign by US and Iraqi forces south of Baghdad. The joint campaign is tackling pockets of resistance within a dangerous zone of farming towns - Mahmudiya, Latifiya and Iskandiriya - known as the triangle of death. At least 2,000 US and Iraqi forces are taking part in the campaign. Also on Thursday, Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said he believed an agreement to secure a ceasefire in the troubled Sadr City district of Baghdad was close. He said Mr Sadr's men must hand in their weapons and "surrender their criminals". Later, a Sadr spokesman offered to hand over heavy weaponry, but only on condition imprisoned members of Mr Sadr's Mehdi Army are released and the government stops pursuing other members. Mr Allawi has pledged that elections will go ahead in January, despite concerns about continuing widespread bombings and kidnappings by insurgents.
-BBCThe US also made the mistake of not containing the violence and looting quickly enough
The alleged link was used as a reason by President Bush for invading Iraq. Mr Rumsfeld was asked by a New York audience about connections between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two," he said, though he later issued a statement saying he was misunderstood. When asked about the putative link during a session at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Monday, the defence secretary said: "I have seen the answer to that question migrate in the intelligence community over a period of a year in the most amazing way." The BBC's diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says Mr Rumsfeld's blunt admission seems to give added weight to one of Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry's most telling punches, when he accused President Bush of fighting the wrong war for the wrong reasons. However, he adds that the minds of many voters may already be made up. In the past, Mr Rumsfeld has spoken of credible information about a link, while Vice-President Dick Cheney regularly goes further and talks of Saddam Hussein having provided safe harbour and sanctuary for al-Qaeda. Several hours after his appearance, Mr Rumsfeld issued a statement saying his comments had been "regrettably misunderstood" and that he had acknowledged there were ties between Osama Bin Laden and Iraq based upon CIA intelligence. This included "solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad", he said.
No proof: On Monday, Mr Rumsfeld also said intelligence about weapons of mass destruction before the invasion had been faulty and that the US had been unable to find any such weapons. "Why the intelligence proved wrong, I'm not in a position to say, but the world is a lot better off with Saddam Hussein in jail," he said. Mr Rumsfeld added that Saddam Hussein's regime was not the "Little Sisters of the Poor" - Iraq had been on the US State Department's terrorist list and made payments for Palestinian suicide bombings, he said. "The relationships between these folks are complicated. They evolve and change over time. In many cases, these different networks have common funders." He also said that although most of al-Qaeda's senior leaders had sworn an oath to Osama Bin Laden, the man suspected to be the principal leader of the network in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had not. Mr Zarqawi's reported presence in Baghdad before the war has been cited in the past by the US administration as evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Iraq mistakes: The former US governor of Iraq, Paul Bremer, said on Monday the US had made two mistakes in the conflict in Iraq - although he was still in favour of intervening in Iraq. One error was not having enough ground troops to take control of the country, he said. The US also made the mistake of not containing the violence and looting quickly enough after Saddam Hussein was ousted, he said. "We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," he told a conference in West Virginia.