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Iraqis Say Civilians Killed in U.S. Raids
Grieving Iraqis comfort each other. According to the U.S. military, 70 insurgents were killed during the airstrikes, which took place in an area known for its heavy insurgent presence.
(Bilal Hussein - AP)
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The Cobra crew killed roughly 10 men, the military said.
Twenty minutes later, an F/A-18 fighter-attack jet crew saw another 35 to 40 men taking weapons from the same suspected safe house and loading them into vehicles.
The pilots hit the house with a precision-guided bomb, killing all the men, the statement said.
Ten minutes later, U.S.-led forces came under small-arms fire in Ramadi, the military said. An F/A-18 hit the building where the fire was coming from with a Maverick missile, and troops on the ground hit the building with missiles from shoulder-mounted launchers.
Up to three insurgents were killed there, the military said.
Ramadi serves as one of the bases and shelters for the insurgency. Iraqi and foreign fighters operate in a string of towns on both sides of the Euphrates River in Anbar province. They ferry weapons, recruits and money from neighboring Syria into Iraq in the province.
Since May, U.S. Marines have launched a series of largely hit-and-run offensives on the Anbar province communities, hoping at least to disrupt insurgent operations.
U.S. forces -- stretched thin in Anbar for most of the war but now building in number -- have increasingly used airstrikes to take out suspected insurgent caches and safe houses, bombing in towns as well as rural areas. The airstrikes allow U.S. troops to hit suspected insurgents without risking firefights or planted bombs on the ground.
In other operations, Marines killed at least 18 suspected insurgents in Anbar, the military said in a statement. The Marine attacks included one against a cave complex where alleged bombers were storing munitions, the military said.
In political violence, a drive-by shooting killed two police officers in the northern city of Kirkuk, and a suicide bomber attacked a funeral for a sheik in Samarra, about 65 miles north of Baghdad, killing two civilians, news agencies said.
