U.S. forces killed 20 people, including two women, Friday in fighting and airstrikes that targeted al-Qaeda in Iraq members northwest of Baghdad, the US military said. The mayor of the area said 19 civiliansdied, including seven women and eight children.
During the raid near Lake Tharthar in Salahuddin province northwest of Baghdad on Friday, ground forces were searching buildings when they were attacked. They returned fire, killing two "insurgents," the U.S. army said.
On his part, Amir Fayadh, the mayor of the al-Ishaqi area, east of the lake, and local police said 19 civilians were killed during airstrikes on two houses, and Fayadh said the dead included seven women and eight children.
In Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed an American soldier Thursday during a joint patrol with the Iraqi army, the U.S. command said. The death raised to 33 the number of U.S. forces killed so far in December.
In the south, more than 800 British soldiers and 200 Danish troops fought Iraqis during a pre-dawn raid in the Hartha area on the outskirts of Basra, coalition officials said. British Maj. Charlie Burbridge, the spokesman for the coalition in southern Iraq, said five Iraqis were arrested and described them as members of "a rogue, breakaway element" of one of the many Shiite militias in the area.
On Thursday, a series of bombings and shootings killed at least 23 people in Iraq, including a 7-year-old girl and two college professors, police said. Iraqi police also uncovered 35 bullet-riddled bodies that had been bound and blindfolded and left in different parts of the capital.
