>From the Gulf News... http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Articles.asp?Article=47225&Sn=WORL
50 die in blitz on Islamist groups BAGHDAD: The United States yesterday widened its war in Iraq with a missile blitz of two Islamist groups in Iraqi Kurdistan killing at least 50 people but sending tensions in the area rising and raising questions over the validity of their targets. Mustafa Sayed Khader, a top commander with the pro-US Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said the pre-dawn attack on Ansar Al Islam (Supporters of Islam), which Washington has linked to the Al Qaeda terror network, involved a two-hour bombardment by some 50 cruise missiles. And in an apparent retaliation, an Australian journalist was killed in a suicide car bomb attack while visiting the area hit near the town of Halabja in the southeast of the autonomous zone. "Ansar positions were bombarded by around 40-50 cruise missiles. The missiles hit Ansar centres. There are many dead and injured, although we don't know how many for sure," Khader said in PUK-held Halabja. The US and PUK have alleged that Ansar Al Islam has links to both Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and Baghdad. The faction controls a tiny pocket of territory between Halabja and the Iranian border, an area around 80km southeast of the PUK's administrative centre of Sulaymaniya. But in a surprise move, missiles also hit the base of a mainstream Islamic party, Komala Islami Kurdistan (Islamic Society of Kurdistan), in the small town of Khormal, killing at least 50 people. Komala control an area between PUK and Ansar territory, and the PUK justified the attack on the group by arguing that it had refused to allow PUK fighters to use its positions to attack Ansar.
