Bomb planters attacked in Iraq; women, child also killed
BAGHDAD - A U.S. helicopter opened fire Tuesday on men seen planting roadside bombs in a Sunni stronghold north of Baghdad, then chased them into a nearby house and continued to shoot, killing 11 Iraqis, including five women and one child, the military said.
Neighbors and relatives of those killed said 14 civilians died. The attack began after men were seen placing bombs near the volatile city of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, said Maj. Peggy Kageleiry, a U.S. military spokeswoman.
An Apache helicopter “engaged these enemy forces, and the enemy forces ran into a house and took over the structure,” she said, adding the attack aircraft continued to fire at the suspected militants as they tried to escape.
A known member of a roadside-bomb-making network was among five military-age men who were killed, but the dead also included five women and one child, the military said. The statement said the circumstances surrounding the airstrikes were under review.
Meanwhile, police and hospital officials said that bombs struck commuters in a predominantly Shiite area 10 miles southeast of Baghdad today, killing at least eight people and wounding 24. Two blasts, which occurred at 7 a.m. in Jisr Diyala, targeted government employees, construction workers and vendors preparing to travel into the capital, according to the officials.
After Tuesday’s strike, Kageleiry expressed regret for the deaths of the civilians but blamed the insurgents for putting lives in danger by running into the house to escape attack by the U.S. forces.
It was the third claim of civilian casualties from U.S. airstrikes in as many days, raids that have prompted complaints from both sides of the sectarian divide that too many Iraqis are dying, particularly as the U.S. increasingly relies on air power to attack militants.
The hard-line Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars said the raid struck families who were celebrating the release of one of their sons from U.S. custody.
The other two raids targeted Shiite militia fighters in the sprawling Sadr City district in eastern Baghdad.
On Monday, relatives and police said a 42-year-old woman and her 4-year-old daughter were seriously wounded when attack helicopters opened fire on a duplex.
The U.S. military said attack helicopters killed one extremist and wounded five after they were seen trying to plant a roadside bomb.
Ground forces also called for air support after encountering fierce resistance in a raid targeting a suspected Iranian-linked leader of a kidnapping ring in Sadr City on Sunday, although casualty tolls conflicted. The Americans said 49 militants were killed, but Iraqi officials insisted the number of casualties was 15 - all civilians.
The U.N. Assistance Mission to Iraq said in its most recent human-rights report that it had recorded at least 88 Iraqi civilians killed in U.S. airstrikes from April 1 to June 30.