US Airstrike Kills at Least 11 in Iraq

Doug Smith, The Los Angeles Times

A U.S. airstrike left at least 11 dead in a village in northern Iraq on Tuesday, heightening an ongoing Iraqi backlash over the civilian toll of American military actions. The military said in a statement that a helicopter fired on a group of men believed to be a cell that places roadside bombs. The men then took refuge in a nearby house and continued to engage U.S. troops, the military said. The statement said 11 Iraqis were killed, including a militant known to be a member of a bomb cell. Residents in the village of Mukaisheefa, about 80 miles north of Baghdad, contested the military account, saying 15 people were killed and that the men were farmers irrigating their fields in the pre-daylight hours. Abdul Wahab Ahmed, a neighbor, said the dead included two toddlers and four teenagers. Five were women, he said. Ahmed said two of three farmers killed were in the field, and another, who was injured, went back to the village of several dozen houses. As neighbors gathered around the man's house, jets made two bombing runs, Ahmed said....

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