American forces accidentally killed nine Iraqi civilians, including a child, during a weekend raid against al Qaeda fighters south of Baghdad, the US military said on Monday. The US raid was carried out on Saturday near the town of Iskandariyah, in an area south-west of Baghdad known as a hotbed of Iraq's violent insurgency.
In addition to the deaths, which were confirmed by local Iraqi officials, another three civilians, including two more children, were wounded and taken to nearby US military hospitals, according to a US statement.
The conflicting claims over the Iskandariyah raid came as officials in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region reported that Turkish warplanes had bombed three villages in an area known as a haunt of Kurdish rebels. Turkey's military said that its planes had attacked dozens of targets, which it described as suspected Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq.
"Turkish aircraft heavily attacked some 70 targets from 3:00 am," a statement on the armed forces website said. A spokesman for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a rebel group fighting for Kurdish self-rule in south-eastern Turkey, also confirmed the attack. Meanwhile, the US army announced the death of a soldier whose vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in east Baghdad on January 31.
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