U.S. Forces Pull Out From Shiite Mosque

The dead included 34 to 35 men and "less than a handful of women," Kimmitt said at a news conference in Baghdad. U.S. ground troops stayed at the site "for an extensive period of time," he said, and did not find any dead children among the casualties.

Kimmitt said the number of men killed compared with the number of women killed appeared inconsistent with the makeup of a wedding party. He also said the time of the attack, around 3 a.m., was "kind of an odd time to be having a wedding."

Kimmitt said ground forces were attacked and returned fire. He did not directly answer a question about whether foreign fighters were the only people killed.

"At this point, the intelligence that we have and the intelligence that we drew on to conduct this operation was sufficient for us to believe -- to conduct that operation," he said. "We believe that we operated within the rules of engagement for that operation."

"This is one of those routes that we have watched for a long period of time as a place where foreign fighters and smugglers come into this country," Kimmitt said. He added: "We are satisfied at this point that the intelligence that led us there was validated by what we found on the ground, and it was not that there was a wedding party going on."

The strike was conducted by an Air Force Special Operations AC-130 gunship, which carries machine guns, cannons and a 105mm howitzer, according to a Pentagon official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Ground forces at the site found AK-47 rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, handguns and machine guns, along with foreign passports, satellite communication equipment and roughly $1,000 in Iraqi dinars, Kimmitt said.

Kimmitt characterized the people at the site as "town dwellers" rather than Bedouin desert inhabitants and said that four-wheel-drive vehicles and jewelry were also found at the site.

In a separate development, the military announced that two soldiers were killed in combat.

In one incident, a soldier was killed and three were wounded when their unit was attacked with hand grenades early Wednesday in central Baghdad.

A 1st Infantry Division soldier was killed Wednesday afternoon and another was wounded by a roadside bomb and gunfire near the northern town of Samarra. A third soldier was slightly injured while trying to put out a fire caused by the explosion. Three suspected attackers were wounded when the soldiers returned fire. Two of the suspects were detained, and the third escaped.

Chan reported from Baghdad. Staff writer Thomas E. Ricks in Washington contributed to this report.