TIKRIT, Iraq (AFP) — A US air strike killed eight family members, three of them women, near executed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's central hometown of Tikrit on Friday, police and witnesses said.
The American military confirmed the bombing, but said the target was an Al-Qaeda operative and not the women inside. The US military placed the death toll at seven, one less than the number given by local authorities.
US troops surrounded the house in the village of Al-Dawr, where Saddam was captured by US forces in December 2003, and ordered its occupants to come out but they did not respond, the Americans said in a statement.
It said an armed man emerged after a one-hour standoff and the troops killed him and ordered the air strike.
"An armed man appeared in the doorway and coalition forces, perceiving hostile intent based on the man's actions, engaged him," the statement said. "Later he was determined to be the suspected terrorist."
The US statement said their main target was a "suspected Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) terrorist alleged to lead improvised explosive device facilitation and brag about his victims."
The US military acknowledged that three women were among the dead but added that troops rescued an Iraqi child from the rubble and evacuated him to a nearby base for medical treatment.
"Sadly, this incident again shows that the AQI terrorists repeatedly risk the lives of innocent women and children to further their evil work," US military spokesman Colonel Jerry O'Hara said.
He said surveillance teams observed two other people running away from the building and taking shelter in a neighbouring mosque. One was later arrested with the help of Iraqi forces.
Abdul Kareem, a close relative of the victims whose home is in the same neighbourhood, said he saw US troops surrounding the house in the early hours. "Then helicopters targeted it," he said.
A doctor at Tikrit General Hospital, Imad al-Juburi, said the bodies of eight people were brought in and the victims appeared to have died of injuries consistent with an air strike.
Several Iraqi police and army officers in Tikrit gave the same death toll.
Large crowds protested against the US raid after the main weekly Muslim prayers in the city, capital of Salaheddin province.
"America is the enemy of God," the protestors chanted.
The US has regularly ordered investigations after incidents involving the deaths of Iraqi civilians but the results of these probes are rarely published.
According to independent estimates, about 95,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion of March 2003.
In January, the Iraqi government and the World Health Organisation estimated that between 104,000 and 223,000 civilians and military personnel had been killed in the country since the invasion.
Violence in Salaheddin province has seen a decline in recent months, mirroring a nationwide fall in unrest.
One of the main factors behind the improved security has been the recruitment of many Sunni Arab tribesmen and former insurgents to the US side in the fight against Al-Qaeda.
They have formed anti-Qaeda groups known as Sahwa, or Awakening, Councils across Sunni areas of Iraq.
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