The remote mountain hideout of a band of Islamist guerrillas was attacked and destroyed with the loss of 25 lives on Saturday. It was a move that Washington and its allies in northern Iraq had warned would come as soon as war began, writes Lynne O'Donnell, Irbil, Northern Iraq
The group targeted, Ansar al-Islam, was named by the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, in his February 5th address to the UN Security Council as a major international terrorist threat, befriended and supported by President Saddam Hussein.
Mr Powell also said a senior operative of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network had established a "poison and explosive training centre camp" in the area under Ansar al-Islam's control.
Sources in the city of Sulemaniyeh said, however, that Ansar al-Islam's base had not been hit, and that the group had left the area days ago. Mr Jalal Talibani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which controls the region, said last month that Washington had given his organisation authority to target the group immediately after the war had begun.
But the sources in Sulemaniyeh said the redoubt that took the barrage of missile strikes was the headquarters of another radical group which US officials believe had been associated with Ansar al-Islam.
Despite the claims made by Mr Powell, it is unlikely Ansar al-Islam was a guest of President Saddam, as it based itself in the hills above the Halabja Plain in northern Iraq, an area outside the control of the Iraqi president.
The group's leader, Mr Najmeddin Faraj Ahmad, known to his followers as Mullah Krekar, has vehemently denied any links with either al-Qaeda or the government of President Saddam.
The group is rooted in the complicated and often murky Kurdish politics of the region, which has been effectively independent since the Gulf War.
It is aligned with the powerful but unpopular Islamic Movement in Iraqi Kurdistan, which has headquarters in Halabja. It is a major rival for power in the region with the PUK, which is staunchly secular and enjoys US support.