US Soldiers Kill Four Members of an Iraqi Family in Adwar, Tikrit, on Tuesday, Nine Civilians South of Baghdad, on Monday, a February 5, 2008 AP News Report

US Faces Fresh Claims of Civilian Deaths in Iraq, Military Says Insurgents Among Dead
By KIM GAMEL
Associated Press Writer
Feb 5, 2008, 4:26 PM EST

BAGHDAD (AP) --

The U.S. military faced complaints Tuesday from its Sunni allies over claims that more civilians had been killed by American forces - amplifying tensions as the Pentagon tries to calm anger over an airstrike last week that claimed innocent lives.

The latest deaths occurred when U.S. soldiers - acting on tips - stormed a squat, mud-brick house in the village of Adwar, 10 miles south of Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. The predominantly Sunni area has been the frequent site of American raids.

The U.S. military acknowledged a woman was killed and a child was wounded, but said it was not clear who shot them.

Two other men were killed and the military described them as "insurgents" (a term used by US corporate media to describe Iraqi fighters who oppose US forces and US-led Iraqi forces).

But Iraqi police, relatives and neighbors said a couple and their 19-year-old son were shot to death in their beds. Iraqi police also said two girls were wounded and one later died. AP Television News video showed the doors pockmarked with bullet holes and pillows and other bedding on the floor and soaked with blood.

It was the second time in as many days that the U.S. military conceded involvement in the death of Iraqi civilians.

On Monday, the military said it had accidentally killed nine Iraqi civilians, including a child, in an airstrike Saturday south of Baghdad.

Both U.S. raids on Saturday and Tuesday were based on what the military said was intelligence gleaned from informants. That raised the possibility that the military was misled into targeting the households.

In Tuesday's incident, the U.S. military said it "regrets the loss of an innocent civilian and the wounding of a child." It said U.S. soldiers killed the two men in self-defense.

Kareem Talea Hamad, a cousin of one of those killed Tuesday, said he watched the raid from his house across the street, and gave an account that differed from the American military's initial reports.

Hamad said U.S. soldiers opened the house's door and opened fire at once, killing its unarmed residents: father Ali Hamad Shihab, 55, his wife Naeimah Ali Sulaiman, 40, and their son Diaa Ali, who was a member of the local Awakening Council.

Two other daughters were wounded and taken to hospitals, and one died Tuesday morning, Hamad said. An Iraqi police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information, supported Hamad's account.

A surviving daughter, Nawal Ali, 16, said that she was in the house at the time of the raid, and that an Iraqi interpreter working for U.S. forces tried to stop the American soldiers from killing her parents.

The unidentified interpreter rushed into the house after he heard gunshots, Ali said. "He shouted at the Americans, saying `What the heck are you are doing?'" she said, adding he then pushed the troops away from the children.

U.S.-backed tribesmen discovered about 50 bodies Tuesday in a mass grave in a former al-Qaida stronghold of Jazeerah near Lake Tharthar, an area northwest of Baghdad where hundreds of bodies have been unearthed in recent months, said Col. Mazin Younis Hussein, commander of a Samarra police unit.

Some of the bodies were severely decomposed, suggesting they were buried months ago, while others appeared to have been killed recently, said police Lt. Muthanna Shakir, who visited the site.

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Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.

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