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Photos confirm US raid child deaths

Local officials said the bodies of six children were pulled from the rubble of two houses

Al Jazeera has obtained exclusive footage that confirms children were among the victims of a US air raid northwest of Baghdad.

Local officials
said that the bodies of 17 civilians, including six children and eight
women, had been pulled from the debris of two houses in al-Ishaqi.

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The
US military had issued a statement on Friday saying that two women were
among 20 suspected "al Qaeda terrorists" killed in the operation.

Al Jazeera's
footage showed the bodies of men, women and children wrapped in
blankets after they had been pulled from the rubble.

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The Agence France Presse news agency said it passed its own photographs of the dead children to Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver, a US military spokesman, who said: "We've checked with the troops who conducted this operation - there were no children found among the terrorists killed.

"I see nothing in the photos that indicates those children were in the houses that our forces received fire from and subsequently destroyed with the air strike."

Faces unrecognisable

In Aljazeera's
pictures angry villagers had gathered around the bodies, several of
which were so badly charred that their faces were unrecognisable.

Local residents said that one entire family had been killed.

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"The Americans have done this before but they always deny it," Amer Alwan, the mayor of al-Ishaqi, told Reuters news agency.

"I want the world to know what's happening here."

He also told the AFP news agency: "This is the third crime done by Americans in this area of Ishaqi. All the casualties were innocent women and children and everything they said about them being part of al-Qaeda is a lie."

He told Al Jazeera that he was calling for an international investigation into the attack.

Abdullah
Hussain Jabbara, deputy governor of Salah al-Din governorate, told Al
Jazeera: "Residents of the two houses [which were bombed] have nothing
to do with al-Qaeda network. All the people killed are members of the
same family."

Investigation pledge

Jabbara said an investigation into the incident would be carried out. 

"But what is the use of opening an investigation?" he asked. "The occupation still exists and Iraqi citizens are the victims." 

The US said the dead were 'al Qaeda terrorists'
Local officials and Iraqi police had said on Friday that they believed 32 civilians had been killed in the attack.

Troops raided a cluster of buildings in the area around Thar Thar lake on Friday.

The US military
said in a statement on Friday the operation in Salaheddin province had
been "based on intelligence reports that indicated associates with
links to multiple al-Qaeda in Iraq networks were operating in the area".  

The statement said troops had come under fire, and "despite
efforts to subdue the remaining armed terrorists, coalition forces
continued to be threatened by enemy fire, causing forces to call in
close air support ... resulting in 18 more armed terrorists killed."

"This is another step closer to defeating al Qaeda in Iraq and helping establish a safe and peaceful Iraq. Coalition Forces will continue to target not only senior al Qaeda in Iraq leaders, but all terrorists regardless of their titles or positions within the community," the statement said.

"Weapons found"

The US military
said AK-47 machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, anti-personnel
mines, explosives, blasting caps and suicide vests were found during
the operation.

Garver told AFP news agency on Friday that the
dead women would have been confirmed as combatants in a "battle damage
assessment" or inspection of the site following the incident.

"If there is a weapon with or next to the person or they are holding it, they are a terrorist," he said.

Only a handful of complaints involving civilian deaths in Iraq have led to criminal investigations by the US military.

"I
can promise you that, in every one of these incidents, they will be
fully investigated," Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, the
second-ranking US general in the country, said.

Al Jazeera contacted the US military for further comment following the release of the television footage.

Officials said they had nothing new to add to their earlier comments.

In March, Iraqis
accused US forces of shooting 11 people in al-Ishaqi, including four
women and five children, while US forces maintained it had only killed
two women and a child in an air strike.

The BBC later
broadcast video footage from the scene showing people with gunshot
wounds. The soldiers involved in the case, however, were cleared of all
misconduct.

Bron: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ACDF8E8D-2CE3-4587-AF AB-3A3DE7DABDD6.htm

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