Commander Of “Operation Lightning” Extinguished; US Consul Hit

In a bulletin posted at 10:05am Mecca time Monday morning, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that a short while before fighters in Abu Ghraib had killed US puppet Brigadier General Khamis al-‘Amiri, the local commander of the so-called “Operation Lightning” offensive and other opponents of the occupation.

A source in the puppet police told Mafkarat al-Islam that an martyrdom fighter wearing an explosive belt got into a gathering of Iraqi puppet troops whom al-‘Amiri was visiting on an inspection tour. The Resistance fighter blew himself up close to the general, killing him along with a number of those close by – all of them so-called Iraqi troops and members of the puppet “wolf brigade.”

The US-backed Iraqi regime had made no announcement of the assassination as of the time of reporting, but sources in the puppet police and puppet army confirmed that General al-‘Amiri had been killed in the attack. At the time of filing, US troops and apostate forces were massed around the area in Abu Ghurayb where the attack took place.

Saddam International Airport Bombed Again

Resistance forces bombarded Saddam International Airport, where the American occupation forces have set up one of their biggest bases in Iraq, at 10am local time Monday morning.

Sources in the puppet security forces deployed in the Airport, who asked not to be identified, told Mafkarat al-Islam that six Katyusha rockets blasted into the western parts of the airport, damaging runways for US fighter aircraft. They also damaged a US F-16 airplane and a number of vehicles. Thick clouds of smoke were seen rising over the area as several powerful secondary explosions rocked the area. Large numbers of US helicopters flew in over the area after the attack.

The First Army of Muhammad claimed responsibility for the attack in a communiqué, a copy of which was obtained by the correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam. The statement said that the rockets struck their intended targets.

Bomb Blasts US Column On Airport Road

In a dispatch posted at 4:15pm Mecca time Monday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that a short while before an bomb had exploded on the road to Saddam International Airport, destroying a Humvee and reportedly killing three US troops and injuring a fourth.

Witnesses told Mafkarat al-Islam in Baghdad that a bomb planted under a billboard by the side of Airport Road blew up as a US military column was passing, killing and wounding four US troops. A source in the Iraqi puppet police a;so was said to have reported that the blast killed three American troops and seriously wounded a fourth.

After the attack, US forces closed the road to the airport, one of the most heavily used in the area of the occupied Iraqi capital, and massed around the area.

US Consul in Baghdad targeted In Car Bombing

A martyrdom fighter blasted an explosives-packed car into a US military convoy in western Baghdad on Monday. QudsPress reported that the American Consul in Baghdad was in the convoy when the attack took place in Baghdad’s al-Yarmuk district.

Iraqi puppet military sources told QudsPress that the convoy in which US Consul Robert Ford was riding was attacked as it pulled away from the headquarters of the Islamic Party in al-Yarmuk.

The source told QudsPress that one American Humvee and one four-wheel drive “civilian” car were completely destroyed by the explosion, which they claimed also killed three Iraqi civilians and wounded three more in addition to inflicting material damage on nearby shops.

QudsPress reported that the precise fate of the US consul was not known, nor was there any information on the extent of casualties suffered by the Americans in the attack.

Earlier, sources in the Iraqi puppet police told Reuters on Monday afternoon that an Iraqi “a high-level” American diplomat had survived the attack, though it was not known whether he specifically was the target.

A spokesman for the Iraqi “Islamic Party” said that an American diplomat had concluded a meeting in their party headquarters in western Baghdad and just left when the Resistance car bomb blasted his convoy.

The so-called “Islamic Party” was formed after the US occupation of Iraq by remnants of the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood organization. It has cooperated with the American occupation and its party chief had a seat on the first US puppet “governing council” under proconsul L. Paul Bremer.

Reuters journalists said US soldiers cordoned off the area after the blast, arriving in unusually large numbers for what was otherwise a fairly routine incident in Baghdad. The British news agency initially reported US officials as claiming they knew about a car bomb attack on a “patrol” but had no knowledge regarding the presence of any American diplomat in the convoy. Reuters quoted one American soldier as saying that he could not comment on the story about the diplomat, but could say that the convoy was not of the usual sort.