11 killed in U.S. helicopter attack on Iraqi village

10/23/2007

By Doug Smith,
Los Angeles Times
October 23, 2007


BAGHDAD -- A U.S. helicopter attack left at least 11 dead in a village north of Samarra today amid a continuing backlash over American military tactics in Iraq.

The military said that the helicopter opened fire on a group of men planting a roadside bomb and that the men took refuge in a nearby house and continued to engage U.S. forces.

Witnesses in the village of Mukaisheefa, about 80 miles north of Baghdad, said 14 people were killed, including five women and three children.

The military said one of the dead was a suspected insurgent and member of a bombing cell. The incident was under review, it said.

On Monday, Iraqi parliamentary leaders said they were considering asking the United Nations to restrict U.S. military forces for responding too aggressively to attacks and not coordinating enough with Iraqi forces. The announcement followed a U.S. raid Sunday in which Iraqi officials said 13 civilians were killed.

The U.S. military said Sunday's strike in Sadr City, a mostly Shiite Muslim neighborhood in the Iraqi capital, killed 49 criminals and that it was unaware of any civilian casualties.

A villager disputed the military's version. In a telephone interview, Abdul Wahhaab Ahmed said the helicopter first attacked three farmers working in their fields before 6 a.m., killing two. When the survivor returned home and villagers congregated around his house, jet planes bombed them, he said.

Ahmed said none of those killed were insurgents.

"I know all the men," he said. "They have nothing to do with these things. They were very good people."

Also today, police said the bodies of 15 men who had been bound, blindfolded and shot were found Monday in a deserted building in a town near Fallouja, 35 miles west of Baghdad.