30,000 Pounds of Mayhem Dropped on al Qaeda Hideouts

Michael Moore's freedom fighters took quite a beating today as the U.S. Air Force rained down 30,000 pounds of bombs on the human debris known as al Qaeda.

This comes 11 days after we whacked them with 40,000 pounds in northern Iraq.

U.S. warplanes dropped 30,000 pounds of bombs on a suspected al Qaeda safe haven south of Baghdad, the U.S. Air Force said, the latest in a series of air strikes aimed at disrupting the Sunni Islamist group's operations.

The U.S. Air Force said the operation, which began on Sunday night and continued on Monday morning, involved B-1 bombers and F/A-18 jets. It targeted Salman Pak, an area 35 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad.

U.S. and Iraqi forces launched an offensive against al Qaeda on Jan. 8 in Iraq's four northern provinces and Baghdad's southern outskirts. The U.S. military has declared al Qaeda the biggest threat to peace in Iraq.

"This particular mission targeted an area where al Qaeda laid obstacles in the way of improvised explosive devices and took up safe haven at the same time. They also used the land to traffic weapons and send fighters into Baghdad," the Air Force said in a statement.

Several houses booby-trapped with explosives were destroyed in the air strikes. Six U.S. soldiers were killed in Diyala province north of Baghdad at the start of the offensive when the house they were searching blew up and collapsed on top of them.

On the heels of this, we have a genuine flying pig moment, as the UN is acknowledging Iraq is now more secure (H/T Hot Air).

"We cannot ignore the recent improvements both in the security and political situation in Iraq," Staffan de Mistura, head of the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), said in a speech to the Security Council.

Of course, Democrats will continue to ignore the improved situation, since they want us to lose.