US rejects Iraqi accusations on deadly night raid (but had advisors there)

Amid a swirl of conflicting versions of the events late Sunday, the US military said Iraqi special forces raided a meeting hall in northeast Baghdad being used by an insurgent cell and killed 16 people and detained 18 others.

"Iraqi commandos and soldiers from the Iraqi counter-terrorism force killed 16 insurgents and wounded three others during a house-to-house search on an objective with multiple structures," said the US military.

The statement added that the Iraqi special forces "received fire almost immediately from several buildings near the target area. They maintained the outer perimeter that enabled an assault force to move quickly to clear and secure the objective, a compound of several buildings."

The US military admitted that members of the US special forces were present in an advisory capacity and said that "no mosques were entered or damaged during this operation."

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Juan Cole's take on this: they attacked the wrong compound!

"Then the US and Iraqi forces say they raided a terror cell in Adhamiyah. Adhamiyah is a Sunni district of Baghdad and is still Baath territory."But somehow the joint US-Iraqi force ended up north, at the Shiite Shaab district. They say that they took fire from Mahdi Army militiamen. But there aren't any such Mahdi Army men in Adhamiyah. I have a sinking feeling that instead of raiding a Sunni Arab building in Adhamiyah, they got disoriented and attacked a Shiite religious center in nearby Shaab instead. Iraqi television angrily showed twenty unarmed corpses on the floor of the religious center, denouncing the US for killing innocent worshippers."

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