Seven people died and three others received injuries when US forces carried out air raids on the south-eastern districts of the rebel-held Iraqi city of Fallujah overnight, hospital officials said on Friday. The general hospital's Dr Saleh Hussein said most victims had been evacuated from the Shuhada district.
The US army earlier said that two raids were carried out in the area late Thursday.
US Marines Spokesman Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert said that marines carried out new air raids and opened artillery fire at arms caches in the south-east of the city.
The marines earlier said they were eliminating weapons warehouses in the area, considered a hub for suspected al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.
"It's artillery you hear ... (and) AC-130 aircraft are engaging known weapons caches in south-eastern Fallujah," Gilbert said after artillery and air strikes shook Fallujah.
An AFP correspondent reported thunderous booms shaking the city's southern Shuhada district. Flames lit the sky, while US aircraft droned overhead, he added.
Gilbert said the attacks on the weapons warehouses were triggering secondary explosives.
Earlier, marines and insurgents clashed when rebels fired on marine positions with "small arms, RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and mortars near the city" at 5.00 p.m., the military said.
"Marines countered these attacks with substantial and proportionate ground fires and air-delivered precision strikes."
Two young Iraqi girls were killed on Friday when their car came under US fire near Fallujah, according to an Iraqi who helped rescue four people wounded in the incident. Villager Mahmoud Mohammed said the mother of the two girls and the driver of the car, who were both wounded, had told him a US tank had fired at the vehicle in Naamiya, 10km south-east of Fallujah. Two other children in the car were hurt. Hospital officials in Fallujah confirmed the casualties.
There was no immediate comment from the US military.
In other violence, a car bomb exploded near a police station in Ishaqi, about 80km north of Baghdad, wounding two policemen, police said. Two prisoners escaped after the blast.
Police said the bomb was aimed at a passing US convoy. The US military had no immediate information on the attack.
Nine insurgents were killed and three wounded in a gun battle Friday between US and Iraqi forces and rebels in the town of Buhruz, north-east of Baghdad, said the US military. The fighting erupted at about 7:20 am (0420 GMT) when insurgents fired on a US patrol in the area which then escalated into full fledged clashes that lasted nearly seven hours, Captain Bill Coppernoll from the 1st Infantry Division said.
"Nine anti-Iraqi forces were killed and three wounded," he said referring to insurgents.
A hospital in the nearby city of Baquba said it received three killed and eight wounded from the fighting.
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