US raid in Iraq kills 3

BAGHDAD — At least three Iraqis were killed and one child was injured after American soldiers stormed a tiny one-room house north of Baghdad and opened fire, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Tuesday.Iraqi police said a couple and their 19-year-old son were killed, and that their two young daughters were wounded in the U.S. raid around 11 p.m. Monday. One of the young girls died early Tuesday, and the other was evacuated to a U.S. military hospital, police said.

The U.S. military, which confirmed the incident in response to a query from The Associated Press, reported just three deaths. The confirmation came a day after the military announced it had accidentally killed nine civilians, including a child, in a U.S. airstrike south of Baghdad.

That incident took place Saturday near Iskandariyah, during a U.S. raid against suspected al-QAida in Iraq militants. It was the deadliest known case of mistaken identity in months, and raised fresh concerns about the military's ability to distinguish friend from foe in a campaign to uproot insurgents from Sunni areas near the capital.

The latest reported killings took place in the village of Adwar, 10 miles south of Tikrit.

The U.S. military said in a statement U.S. troops came under small arms fire while entering the building, and that soldiers shot dead two men inside. A woman was killed and one child was injured, but it was unclear who shot them, the statement said. The incident remains under investigation, the military said.

A cousin of the victims, Kareem Talea Hamad, 20, said he watched the killings from his house across the street, and gave a different account of events than the American military's version.

Hamad said U.S. soldiers opened the door to the small brick house and immediately opened fire, killing its unarmed residents: father Ali Hamad Shihab, 55, his wife Naeimah Ali Sulaiman, 40, and their 19-year-old son Diaa Ali, who was a member of a U.S.-backed neighborhood watch group.

Two other daughters were wounded and transported to hospitals, and one died Tuesday morning, Hamad said. An Iraqi police officer, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, confirmed Hamad's account.

An AP reporter who went to the family's house early Tuesday saw three dead bodies, laid out in their blood-soaked beds. Bullet casings littered the ground.

Later Tuesday, the U.S. military issued another statement saying it "regrets the loss of an innocent civilian and the wounding of a child." It did not name the father and son, but claimed U.S. soldiers killed the men in self-defense.