Yet another report of heavy U.S. airstrikes killing Iraqi civilians.
Los Angeles Times, 22 July 2007
U.S. helicopters strike at insurgents
Witnesses say attack north of Baghdad hit women, children
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Los Angeles Times
Baghdad — A U.S. military missile attack on insurgents in a town north of the capital left six insurgents dead and five wounded Saturday, officials said.
But witnesses in Husseiniya, about 20 miles north of Baghdad, said U.S. helicopters attacked three houses during a four-hour period, killing at least 18 people, including women and children. They said about 21 people were wounded in the attacks, which leveled the buildings.
The incident took place after insurgents fired on combined U.S. and Iraqi forces from a house near Husseiniya shortly before midnight, the U.S. military said.
U.S. attack helicopters returned fire with missiles, chasing the insurgents to a second house and dropping a bomb that caused several secondary explosions, probably from explosives stored in the building, the military said.
Iraqi police searched the area and found six insurgents killed and five wounded, the statement said.
But witnesses in the town offered a conflicting account.
“It was a war and not a response to an attack targeting them. It was a war against civilians inside their houses,” said Hazim Hussein, 30, a wholesale merchant whose house is about 160 yards from the bomb site.
Hussein said he found body parts of women and children in the rubble of the three houses.
Another witness, Trade Ministry official Ali Abid Fartusi, 36, said he saw seven or eight charred bodies, including those of children. He said residents in the mostly Shiite Muslim area have been attacked by Sunni insurgents in the east and U.S. forces in the west.
“We are between the hammer of the Sunni areas and the anvil of the American troops,” Fartusi said. “We are living under miserable circumstances.”
A U.S. military spokesman said no civilian casualties were reported after the attack.
