About 20 foreign fighters were killed overnight in a strike by US forces in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, a senior US military official said Wednesday.  

"Twenty foreign fighters ... we believe were killed in that strike," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

The US military confirmed late Tuesday that it launched an airstrike earlier on a safe-house in the flashpoint Iraqi town of Fallujah, which was used by followers of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the US-led coalition's deputy chief of operations, said the strike involved precision weapons to "target and destroy" the safe-house and was based on "multiple confirmations of actionable intelligence."

"Wherever and whenever we find elements of the Zarqawi network, we will attack them," he added.

Local hospital sources said late Tuesday that the air strike hit a car garage, killing four people and wounded six others.

But other sources gave different figures of the toll, saying three people were killed and 10 others wounded in the strike.

(Xinhua News Agency June 24, 2004)