they promised better life

Iraqis killed in US raid
15 March 2006, aljazeera.net


Eleven people - most of them women and children - have been killed after US forces bombed a house during a raid north of Baghdad, police and relatives said.

Attacks by anti-US fighters killed at least four more people.

The US military acknowledged the raid and said it captured one rebel fighter.

It took place near Balad, about 80km north of the capital on Wednesday.

But the military said only four people were killed - a man, two women and a child.

Relatives however said 11 bodies, wrapped in blankets, were driven in the back of three pickup trucks to the Tikrit General Hospital, about 70km to the north.

AP photographs showed the bodies of two men, five children and four other covered figures arriving at the hospital accompanied by grief-stricken relatives.

Dust-covered

The victims were covered in dust with bits of rubble tangled in their hair.

Riyadh Majid, who identified himself as the nephew of the killed head of the family - Faez Khalaf - told AP at the hospital that US forces landed in helicopters and raided the home early on Wednesday.

Khalaf's brother, Ahmed, said nine of the victims were family members who lived at the house and two were visitors.

"The killed family was not part of the resistance, they were women and children," Ahmed Khalaf said.

"The Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only death."

House flattened

The US military said it was targeting and captured an individual suspected of supporting foreign fighters for al-Qaida in Iraq.

"Troops were engaged by enemy fire as they approached the building," said Tech Sgt Stacy Simon, a military spokeswoman.

"Coalition forces returned fire utilising both air and ground assets."

Police Captain Laith Mohammed, in nearby Samarra, said American warplanes and armour were used in the strike, which flattened the house and killed the 11 people inside.

An AP reporter at the scene in the rural Isahaqi area said the roof of the house collapsed, three cars were destroyed and two cows killed.