KavkazCenter - Kurds killed in US 'friendly fire'

Kurds killed in US 'friendly fire'

A U.S. air strike apparently mistakenly destroyed a position of the Kurdish party led by Iraqi president Jalal Talabani on Thursday night, killing eight militiamen and wounded six others, a party official said on Friday. U.S. warplanes bombarded the Karama military position outside Mosul City, some 400 km north of Baghdad, said Muhiy al-Dien al-Mazouri, head of media office in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Mazouri said the victims were Peshmerga members, the military wing of the PUK, which is one of the major Kurdish parties in Iraq's northern autonomous region,- Xinhua reported. A US air strike has killed eight Kurdish peshmerga militiamen and wounded six others in northern Iraq, Kurdish officials say, describing the incident as an apparent act of friendly fire. The US military had said in a statement that US forces killed five armed men in the city of Mosul early on Friday during a raid targeting an al-Qaeda cell. The men turned out to be Kurdish police officers, the statement said. Kurdish officials put the casualty toll at eight killed and six wounded, and said the men were guarding a branch of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The PUK, one of two main Kurdish political parties in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, is led by Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi president and a key supporter of US efforts in Iraq. Mosul lies close to the Kurdistan region. Kurdish militiamen have a presence in parts of the city. Kabir Goran, deputy head of the PUK, said the air strike occurred around midnight on Thursday when a US helicopter attacked what he called a Kurdish peshmerga watchtower in eastern Mosul. "We think they may have hit us by mistake," he said. The US military statement said that during the operation, US forces identified armed men from a bunker near the targeted al-Qaeda building. Calls were made in Arabic and Kurdish for the men to put down their weapons. As air support was called in, the statement said small arms fire came from the bunker. Baghdad killings Also on Friday, police said armed men dressed in Iraqi army uniforms swept into a village south of Baghdad, kidnapping 13 civilians and killing at least 11 of them. The attack occurred around 5am local time in Imam, a predominantly Shia village about 75km south of the Iraqi capital,- Jazeera informed. Police later found 11 bodies with bullet wounds to the head and chest, and they were believed to be those who had been kidnapped, police and the Iraqi army said. First Lieutenant Murad al-Maamouri, an Iraqi army spokesman, acknowledged the assailants wore Iraqi army uniforms and drove military vehicles, but said they were not government soldiers. Another US air strike late on Thursday killed eight suspected anti-government fighters and destroyed a building in Arab Jabour, a mostly Sunni Muslim suburb south of Baghdad, the US military said. More casualties Separately, the US military said three US soldiers died on Thursday in fighting in western Anbar province, bringing the total number of US military deaths in Iraq this month to 33. In another incident, a British soldier has been killed and three others have been injured in a roadside bomb attack in southern Iraq, the British ministry of defence said on Friday. "We can confirm that there has been a roadside bomb attack on a Multi-National Force patrol southeast of Basra city which has resulted in the death of one MNF soldier", who is British, an MoD spokeswoman said. "Three other soldiers have also been injured, one of whom is described as critical." KC