U.S. says 12 militants killed in Iraq gunfight (Ramadi)

[maddezmom]

RAMADI, Iraq, Feb 22 (Reuters) - U.S. forces killed at least 12 insurgents and wounded three in a six-hour gunbattle in Ramadi involving heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and air strikes, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

1st Lieutenant Shawn Mercer, a spokesman for U.S. Marines operating in western Iraq, said the battle started on Wednesday evening when gunmen attacked U.S. forces in the east of Ramadi, a Sunni insurgent stronghold in Anbar province.

"The scale of the fight eventually led to coalition forces using precision guided munitions (air strikes) and causing damage to a number of structures," Mercer said in an email response to questions.

Residents in Ramadi said three buildings were destroyed in the clashes. A civil defence official and an ambulance driver, both of whom declined to be identified, said as many as 26 people were killed, including some women and children.

Mercer denied that. "We have no reports of civilian casualties and there were no coalition casualties," he said.

link: http://mobile.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PAR243501.htm

[maddezmom]

1. U.S. airstrike kills 26 people in Ramadi

.S. airstrike kills 26 people in Ramadi
BAGHDAD (CNN) -- At least 26 people were killed late Wednesday in a U.S. airstrike in the Anbar province capital of Ramadi, civil defense and hospital officials told CNN on Thursday.

Three houses on Ashreen Street were bombed about 11 p.m., a strike that occurred after fighting between U.S. soldiers and insurgents in the same area, officials said.

Officials did not say whether the victims were civilians or insurgents.

CNN was trying to get a statement from the U.S. military on the incident.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/02/22/thursday/index.html?section=cnn_latest

[maddezmom]

2. Woman and children killed in fighting in Ramadi AP photographer was a wtiness

However, Dr. Hafidh Ibrahim of the Ramadi Hospital said 26 people, including four women and children, were killed when three houses were damaged in the fighting.

An Associated Press photographer saw the bodies of two small boys wrapped in a blanket, one with a bloody face, the other ashen and with mud on his mouth, his hands crossed on his chest. Four or five bodies were covered by blankets, while several men pulled at a pile of rubble and concrete bricks outside, apparently the wreckage of one of the destroyed houses.

Ramadi, the provincial capital of the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar, has seen some of the bloodiest street battles of the war.

http://www.kare11.com/news/national/national_article.aspx?storyid=244927




Residents search for bodies in the rubble of houses destroyed during clashes between U.S. forces and insurgents in Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad, February 22, 2007. Residents in Ramadi said three buildings were destroyed in the clashes. A civil defence official and an ambulance driver, both of whom declined to be identified, said as many as 26 people were killed, including some women and children. REUTERS/Stringer (IRAQ)