US troops came under attack on Wednesday, with insurgents in Fallujah firing two rocket-propelled grenades at soldiers. The US military and police officials in Fallujah said there were no injuries and no arrests made.
Iraqi police Lt. Iyad Abed said one of the two grenades exploded in the air and the second landed on the street outside a building occupied by US soldiers in central Fallujah, some 35 miles west of the capital Baghdad.
According to witnesses, cited by AP, two US helicopters flew over the site soon after the early morning attack.
Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera reported a second skirmish in Fallujah, when a US patrol came under fire. The Qatar-based station also reported a 10-minute gun-battle early Wednesday between American occupation forces and unidentified gunmen farther west in the town of Ramadi. It provided no details on whether there were casualties in either attack, and the US military in Baghdad said it had no information on the reported incidents.
In a separate development, a suspected Iraqi intelligence operative, who may have been in contact with leading September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, has been captured by US troops in what is viewed as a significant breakthrough in the investigation of al-Qaeda's foreign relations, a US official said Tuesday.
Former Iraqi envoy to the Czech Republic Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani was taken into custody at an undisclosed location in Iraq on July 2, the official told AFP, on condition of anonymity.
The official declined to provide any further details, however a US government source said the CIA had reason to believe Ani was using his diplomatic post in Prague to conduct covert operations.
"He held the title of ambassador and allegedly he was an intelligence officer," the government source said.
Ani is suspected to have held a secret meeting with Atta in Prague in April 2001 to discuss “terrorist operations”.
US intelligence officials concede they do not have solid proof at this time the meeting had actually taken place, but they believe Ani's capture could help shed light on events leading up to the attacks and Iraq's alleged ties to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
