11 Iraqis dead after US troops clash with militiamen in Baghdad

BAGHDAD -- US soldiers in eastern Baghdad clashed with Shi'ite militiamen over several hours yesterday, leaving at least 11 Iraqis dead and an unknown number injured, including two children hurt by shrapnel sprayed by a US military attack helicopter, according to American soldiers who took part in the mission.

The intensive six-hour operation began at 6 a.m., when 240 US soldiers in 65 Humvees, several Bradley fighting vehicles, and two Apache attack helicopters descended on the Amin neighborhood, along with a dozen Iraqi troops, in response to increasing attacks on American soldiers by members of the Mahdi Army, the Shi'ite militia loyal to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

During the fighting, an Apache helicopter fired bursts of 30-millimeter rounds toward several people who had been shooting machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at US soldiers. The helicopter also fired on a silver Toyota minivan in the area as several people approached the vehicle, soldiers said.

Two of the civilians killed during the fighting were journalists with the Reuters news service. Photographer Namir Noor- Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, were killed in what a preliminary Iraqi police report described as a "random American bombardment," Reuters reported. The US military has said it has opened an investigation into the killings.

When American soldiers arrived at the scene, they found the children in the minivan along with at least one adult.

"When we first went through, we saw the little girl," said Lieutenant Josh Hunsucker, one of the first soldiers to arrive. "The little boy, he was slumped down. We all thought he was dead. But then we saw him move."

An officer who saw a medical report about the children said shrapnel from the Apache strafing injured them. The girl was wounded in the abdomen and the boy in the lower chest. Both were said to be in stable condition.

Soldiers found at least six other bodies, all adult men, on the ground near the children. Four were in a sitting position and two were lying face down on the ground, soldiers said. A camera believed to belong to the news photographer lay nearby. It was unclear whether the journalists had been killed by US fire or by shooting from the Iraqis, whom the Apache was targeting.

"We pulled up and stopped and I could hear them over the intercom say they couldn't drive the Bradleys in because there were too many bodies and didn't want to drive over them," said Captain James Hall, an Army chaplain.

The Apache crew shot because militants "were endangering the stability of Iraq, and they had positive identification that they had weapons and were using them against Coalition and Iraqi security forces," said Major Brent Cummings, the battalion's executive officer. "No innocent civilians were killed on our part deliberately. We took great pains to prevent that. I know that two children were hurt, and we did everything we could to help them. I don't know how the children were hurt."

Another 13 people were detained during the operation, the US military said in a statement.

Also yesterday, the US military said an American soldier died in fighting east of Baghdad. No other details were available.

Gunmen near Tikrit attacked a police checkpoint and killed four policemen and wounded four others, said Major Mohammed al-Doori, from the al-Door police station. The initial clashes lasted half an hour, and then gunmen took the four policemen into a room near the checkpoint and executed them, he said.

Iraqi police said yesterday that patrols found 16 unidentified corpses on the streets of Baghdad in the previous 24 hours.