BAGHDAD — U.S. combat helicopters and tanks bombarded a Baghdad neighborhood in pre-dawn strikes on Thursday, killing 14 sleeping civilians and destroying houses, angry residents and Iraqi officials said.
The U.S. military, which has deployed thousands of extra troops in the Iraqi capital to try to stem rampant violence, said the operation was aimed at Shiite extremists and the houses destroyed were "enemy strongholds."
Iraqi defence and interior ministry officials said U.S. helicopters fired on houses in the Al-Washash neighborhood of Mansour district in west Baghdad between 2 and 3 a.m.
Abu Ali Saad, a resident of the mainly Shiite enclave, said U.S. military vehicles had arrived in large numbers in Al-Washash during the night.
"There were tanks and armoured vehicles and many troops," 35-year-old Saad said while surveying the rubble of his neighbor's house.
"The tanks started firing then the helicopters came. Missiles were fired from the air. Houses were destroyed. A family of five were killed in this house," he said, referring to his neighbors.
"We are a peaceful neighborhood. There are no militia here. There were no exchanges of fire. We were all sleeping."
A U.S. military statement said Iraqi and U.S. forces had engaged Shiite extremist militants who were part of a "terrorist cell" operating in Al-Washash.
When Iraqi and U.S. forces entered the area they came under fire from "more than a dozen extremists firing from the rooftops of surrounding buildings," the statement said.
The fire was returned and air strikes were carried out against "positively identified armed gunmen directing small arms fires on to the assault force."
"A total of four buildings were damaged, including two enemy strongholds that sustained major damage and two surrounding buildings that sustained moderate damage," the statement said.
It did not detail the number of people killed in the operation but said the Iraqi and U.S. forces suffered no casualties.
Washington has deployed an extra 28,500 troops as part of a "surge" in Baghdad and surrounding areas aimed at quelling sectarian violence that has killed thousands of Iraqis since it erupted 18 months ago.
In other violence, a bomb exploded near a line of workers seeking daily employment in Baghdad's southeastern Zafaraniya district, killing one worker and wounding five, a defense ministry official said.
In Tikrit, 130 kilometers north of Baghdad, a car bomb aimed at a police patrol killed two civilians and wounded 17, police said.
In Hawra Haajab village on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, meanwhile, two suspected members of al-Qaida were killed and two captured during an operation launched early Thursday by a U.S. cavlary unit, according to Captain Chad Klascius who is leading the assault.
"We've moved into the town and are taking it back. We are trying to push al-Qaida out," Klascius said. "We are shooting machine guns and they are returning fire as well as shooting mortar rounds.
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