Iraqi Resistance Carries Out First Martyrdom

The statement further said that three armored vehicles and one tank at least were destroyed during the operation.

Eyewitnesses told IOL that U.S. troops were demolishing parts of Baghdad airport to build up a prison for Iraqi detainees, adding that they rented a number of trucks to lift the debris.

"Abu Abdullah was a driver of one of these trucks…He loaded the truck with explosives and blow it up inside the airport field, causing deafening sound heard by the inhabitants of the area and sending plumes of black smokes skyward," they added.

U.S. troops rent these trucks and hire laborers without checking the identities of the drivers or workers, which provides an easy access to under-construction sites.

U.S. troops also are moving around in streets without adequate protection, which made some Iraqi scholars issue a fatwa (religious edict) ruling that "it is not permissible to carry out martyrdom operations for the time being in Iraq because the enemy is an easy target and it is difficult to spare the blood of innocent Iraqis."

A spokesman for the U.S.-led occupation forces in Iraq, however, declined to comment, but admitted a number of anti-U.S. attacks had been carried out in the airport area and its surrounding suburbs, blaming, in the mean time, remnants of the deposed Baath party and loyalists to ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein for such attacks.