FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - Fifteen people died when US jets pounded Fallujah as Turkey warned Washington it would halt cooperation over Iraq (news - web sites) if US forces did not stop an assault on the Turkmen town of Tall Afar.
Amid the country's relentless hostage crisis and desperate efforts by Canberra, Paris and Rome to secure the release of, or word on, nationals, grisly footage of the execution of a Turkish hostage was posted on an Islamist website.
In the notorious Sunni Arab insurgent bastion of Fallujah, US warplanes launched the latest in a string of strikes on alleged bases of Iraq's most wanted man, suspected Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, who is accused of masterminding some of the deadliest attacks since last year's US-led invasion.
"Intelligence reports indicated that only Zarqawi operatives and associates were at the meeting location at the time of the strike," the US military said.
Zarqawi loyalists claimed responsibility for a string of missile attacks and suicide bombings that saw 45 people killed and scores wounded in Iraq on Sunday.
But an undertaker and angry residents denounced US claims that the victims were all Zarqawi aides.
"So far we received 15 bodies. Among them is an ambulance driver and two nurses, plus five wounded who were in the ambulance when it was bombed," said undertaker Falah Abdullah.
Pick-up trucks carried the bodies to the cemetery, where a crowd of furious relatives washed and buried their loved ones, an AFP correspondent said.
Hamid Abbas, 32, said his windscreen smashed when a jet dropped a missile on the car in front.
"All of a sudden I heard a powerful explosion. A few seconds later, I saw the car on fire and charred bodies inside. People on the street were in a state of panic."
Medics said 20 people were wounded in the latest US strike on the militant stronghold since seven US marines were killed in a car bomb last Monday.
Four days after US-led Iraqi forces pressed an assault on the northern town of Tall Afar, an alleged staging point for militants infiltrating from Syria, neighbouring Turkey delivered a stark warning to traditional ally Washington.
"I myself spoke to the American Secretary of State (Colin Powell (news - web sites))," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul was quoted as saying by Turkey's Anatolia news agency.
"We stated very clearly that if (the assault) continues, Turkey will end its partnership on all areas touching Iraq."
In an interview published in European and US newspapers, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi admitted that some Iraqis might be unable to vote in nationwide elections planned for January, despite insisting the polls would go ahead.
"If for any reason 300,000 people cannot have an election, cannot vote because terrorists decide so, then frankly 300,000 people... is not going to alter 25 million people voting," Allawi said.
In other violence Monday, one person was killed and three wounded in a US helicopter strike on a Baghdad commercial district, not far from the scene of heavy fighting between US troops and insurgents a day earlier, witnesses said.
A dead man was sprawled in the street, his stomach ripped to shreds by shrapnel. A child was among the wounded, AFP journalists saw.
In Kuwait, on an 11th-hour diplomatic tour to win the release of two Italian women hostages kidnapped in Baghdad, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini called for their immediate freedom at the landmark Great Mosque.
An Islamist website published a purported ultimatum from the pair's captors Sunday threatening to kill the two 29-year-olds unless Rome withdrew its troops from Iraq within 24 hours.
"I seize this opportunity to call for the release of the two Italian hostages and all hostages in Iraq," begged Frattini.
Canberra said it was "moving heaven and earth" to investigate claims that two Australians had been kidnapped in Iraq in a bid to force the government to withdraw its troops from the country.
"We tell the infidels of Australia that they have 24 hours to leave Iraq or the two Australians will be killed without a second chance," said a statement from the Secret Islamic Army's Horror Brigades circulated in Iraq.
Its authenticity could not be independently verified.
Australia took part in last year's US-led invasion and still maintains 850 troops in Iraq.
The ultimatum was all the chiller after bloody footage of last month's execution of a Turkish hostage by Islamic militants in Iraq was posted on an Islamist website.
In the video, three masked kidnappers are shown slitting the throat of the blindfolded trucker seized by Zarqawi's the Tawhid wal Jihad (Unification and Holy War) group in August.
France has also begun to dig in for the long haul as uncertainty persisted over the fate of two missing journalists kidnapped three weeks ago.