U.S. Army: Baghdad aerial bombing targeted extremists (reports of 19 civilian casualties)

[sabra]

http://66.111.34.180/look/english/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrArticle=54536&NrIssue=2&NrSection=1

Baghdad, Sept 6, (VOI)- U.S. army said that Iraqi and U.S. forces, backed by choppers, launched in the early hours of Thursday a military operation in western Baghdad, targeting what the army described as "extremist militants responsible for attacking police forces", while local residents said the raid left 19 casualties.

"Iraqi Special Operations Forces, with U.S. Special Forces as advisers, while conducting an intelligence-driven operation in the Baghdad area Sept. 6 were engaged by a number of Shi’a extremist militants," the U.S. military said in a statement received by the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

The statement added "the targeted Shi’a extremists are part of a terrorist cell operating in the Al Washash region of Baghdad."
The targeted cell, according to the U.S. army, "is responsible for attacking local police and conducting illegal checkpoints to intimidate, extort and murder local citizens. The team also conducts extra judicial killings of Sunnis."
The statement added that when the forces entered the area, they came under fire.
"Forces also directed proportional aerial fires onto targeted buildings against positively identified armed gunmen directing small arms fires onto the assault force," it said.
The raid damaged four buildings including two used by the militants, the U.S. army added.

Earlier on Thursday, local residents told VOI that 12 people were killed and seven more wounded as U.S. choppers bombed al-Washash neighborhood in western Baghdad.
"U.S. aircraft pounded at dawn houses in al-Washash region near al-Mansour neighborhood in western Baghdad," an eyewitness told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
"The shelling killed 12 persons and injured seven others, some of whom are in a critical condition," he also said.

[endarkenment]

1. By the way, this is a war crime.

Bombing civilian targets in cities like this is simply a war crime.