BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. warplanes pounded a suspected hideout of al-Qaida-linked militants in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah today, killing at least 16 people and wounding 12, officials and witnesses said. The strike came a day after a surge in violence killed 78 people across Iraq.

The U.S. military said jets carried out a precision strike on a site in Fallujah where forces loyal to Jordanian-born terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were meeting.

"Intelligence sources reported the presence of several key al-Zarqawi operatives who have been responsible for numerous terrorist attacks against Iraqi civilians, Iraqi Security Forces and multinational forces," the military said in a statement.

The military said reports indicated the strikes had achieved their aim but did not name the operatives.

Witnesses said the bombing targeted the city's residential al-Shurta neighborhood, damaging buildings and raising clouds of black smoke.

Dr. Adel Khamis of the Fallujah General Hospital said at least 16 people were killed, including women and children, and 12 others wounded. An ambulance rushing from the area of the blasts was hit by a shell, killing the driver, a paramedic and five patients inside the vehicle, said another hospital official.

"The conditions here are miserable - an ambulance was bombed, three houses destroyed and men and women killed," the hospital's director, Rafayi Hayad al-Esawi, told Al-Jazeera television by telephone. "The American army has no morals."

Witnesses said U.S. warplanes repeatedly swooped low over the city and that artillery units deployed on the outskirts also opened fire.

One explosion went off in a marketplace in Fallujah as the first vendors began to set up their stalls, wounding several people and shattering windows, witnesses said.

U.S. forces pulled out of Fallujah in April after a three-week siege that left hundreds dead and a trail of devastation. The U.S. Marines have not patrolled inside Fallujah since then and Sunni insurgents have strengthened their hold on the city.

Also Sunday, insurgents hammered central Baghdad with intense mortar and rocket barrages.

At least 37 people were killed in Baghdad alone. Many of them died when a U.S. helicopter fired on a disabled U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle as Iraqis swarmed around it, cheering, throwing stones and waving the black and yellow sunburst banner of Iraq's most-feared terror organization.

In a visit to the southern city of Basra, interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi vowed to pursue insurgents.

"We are adamant that we are going to defeat terrorism," Allawi said. "We intend to confront them and bring them to justice."