Iraqis protest civilian deaths in US air strike

Hussein captured in town in 2003

Men carried the body yesterday of a person killed in an overnight raid in the town of Adwar, near Samarra, Iraq. (Hameed Rasheed/Associated Press)

BAGHDAD - Iraqis protested the deaths of at least seven people during a US air strike in northern Iraq yesterday, in the town where Saddam Hussein was captured in 2003.

The US military said the raid successfully targeted a senior operative of Al Qaeda in Iraq who was suspected of involvement in bombing attacks along the Tigris river valley.

But Iraqi officials said the strike used excessive force, killing eight innocent members of one family. They accused the Americans of shooting down men and women from the air as the villagers fled; the United States said seven were killed.

The deaths occurred at a sensitive time for the US government, as it tries to negotiate a security agreement with Iraq, which is eager to exert tighter control over US troops that remain in the country.

A US military statement said that coalition forces went to Adwar in Salahuddin province after receiving intelligence that the wanted man was in the small Sunni town, which lies 80 miles north of Baghdad and near Saddam Hussein's former power base of Tikrit.

It said the target was an "emir" in the bombing network of Al Qaeda in Iraq, known to the Americans as AQI.

Iraqi officials said the dead were all from one family: five men in their 20s and 30s and three women ages 20 to 58.

Abdul Karim Khalil Ibrahim, 51, a relative, said that he watched the raid take place from his house.

"The American forces surrounded my cousin's house, then they bombed it," he said. "I was watching from my roof through a hole in the wall. The American forces lit the place with flashlights. I saw my cousin with his wife escape from the back yard, when the American helicopter shot them and killed them immediately."

US officials said that four men and three women were killed, but said the use of air power in the operation was justified.

"After arriving at the target, forces surrounded the building and called for its occupants to surrender. Despite nearly an hour of multiple calls and warnings that the force would engage them, the individuals inside refused to come out," said the statement.

"An armed man appeared in the doorway, and coalition forces, perceiving hostile intent based on the man's actions, engaged him.

Later he was determined to be the suspected terrorist. During the operation, and in accordance with applicable rules, supporting aircraft engaged and killed three additional terrorist suspects. Three women were also killed."

They said an Iraqi child was rescued from the rubble by coalition forces and taken to a nearby base for medical treatment.

Colonel Jerry O'Hara, a US military spokesman in Baghdad, said: "Sadly, this incident again shows that the AQI terrorists repeatedly risk the lives of innocent women and children to further their evil work."

After the attack, 400 protesters gathered at the site, demonstrating peacefully against the raid, and marched to the cemetery for the funeral.

Abdullah Hussein Jibara, the deputy governor of Salahuddin province, said he did not accept the initial explanations offered by the Americans to the Iraqi police in Adwar and said that they should have carried out more checks before the bombing.

"I condemn the random targeting of civilians and the excessive use of force against civilians," he said.