U.S. Forces Strike Suspected Rebel Sites in Fallujah

AC-130s, cargo aircraft equipped with cannon and machine guns, were in action over the city for about a half hour, coinciding with tank shelling, Reuters reported.

A woman was seriously wounded and a teenage girl lost her leg in Wednesday’s strikes, said hospital official Issam Mohammed, according to Reuters.

The U.S. military is poised for a massive offensive on the city, 32 miles west of Baghdad, to flush out Islamic militants and Saddam Hussein loyalists. The Iraqi government has promised to retake all rebel strongholds before elections scheduled for January.

Elsewhere, gunmen kidnapped a Lebanese-American businessman, the second U.S. citizen seized this week in Baghdad, according to the Associated Press.

Radim Sadeq, a mobile phone company worker, was taken about midnight Tuesday when he answered the door of his home in Baghdad’s upscale Mansour neighborhood. No group claimed responsibility.

It was the second abduction of an American this week. On Monday, gunmen stormed a two-story compound of a Saudi company, kidnapping an unidentified American, Nepalese, Filipino and three Iraqis, two of whom were later released.

More than 170 foreigners have been abducted and more than 30 killed in Iraq since Saddam’s regime fell in April 2003. Loyalists to Jordanian militant and al-Qaida ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi have beheaded at least six of the foreigners.

Another militant group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, released a videotape on its Web site Wednesday showing the beheading of an Iraqi officer as a warning to those who cooperate with “the infidel” Americans.

The group said Maj. Hussein Shanoun had confessed to taking part in attacks against insurgents on orders of the Americans, the AP reported.

South of the capital city, meanwhile, a U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded in a roadside bombing.

And a suicide bomber exploded his vehicle at a checkpoint near Baghdad airport, injuring nine Iraqis.