DULUIYA, Iraq, 20 March 2006 — US troops killed eight people, including a family, after their patrol was ambushed in an Iraqi town early yesterday, Iraqi police said. They said three of the victims were a 13-year-old boy and his parents who were shot dead when US soldiers entered their house in the Sunni town of Duluiya, about 90 km north of Baghdad.
“A patrol of US forces was attacked by gunmen using rocket propelled grenades,” a Duluiya police officer told Reuters.
They said three of the victims were young men, but it was not immediately clear whether they were militants or civilians. Six people were also wounded in the fighting and seven detained for questioning.
The US military said it was checking the report.
A Reuters reporter in the town said there was heavy gunfire and the sound of explosions from 2 a.m. until 4 a.m. When the fighting died down, residents emerged from their homes as US troops backed by armored fighting vehicles occupied the town.
The reporter said at least three houses had been damaged in the fighting.
As helicopters hovered overhead, US troops handed out leaflets saying they did not regard Sunnis as their enemy and that they wanted to withdraw from Iraq as soon as the country’s newly formed army was able to stand on its own feet.
It also asked residents to give them information about the activities of insurgents, who are waging a campaign against the government.
One of the dead men was later identified by a relative as Naim Owaid, 31, a policeman, who left home yesterday wearing civilian clothes. “He went out in the morning; half an hour later we heard that he was killed and we saw his body lying in the street. We couldn’t go to fetch his body,” said his cousin, who asked not to be named. Another of the victims was 18-year-old Ibrahim Talib. “He went to see what was going on,” said a relative who also did not want to be identified.
During the operations, police said US troops arrested Col. Farouq Khalil, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official, after raiding his house.
Members of the Iraqi Red Crescent said US troops, citing security concerns, prevented them from delivering relief aid to beleaguered communities in the area.
The raids in Duluiya were part of Operation Swarmer launched Thursday by US and Iraqi forces to hunt down insurgents northeast of Samarra.
Twelve bodies with gunshot wounds were discovered around the capital, police said, apparently the latest victims of sectarian violence that threatens to explode into all-out conflict.
Iraq’s former interim prime minister said the increasing attacks across the country can only be described as a civil war, and that the United States and Europe could be touched by spreading violence, according to an interview aired yesterday.
“It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more,” Iyad Allawi told the British Broadcasting Corp. “If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.”
In Baghdad, Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders were still struggling to form a national unity government more than three months after elections, raising fears that a political vacuum will play into the hands of insurgents and fuel violence.
Iran, which has strong ties to fellow Shiites leading the interim government in Baghdad, has agreed to an Iraqi proposal to hold talks with the United States on stabilizing Iraq.
