Topic: 9 Civilian Deaths Point To Risk Of U.S. Strikes At Insurgents

Philadelphia Inquirer
February 5, 2008 While ties with Sunnis are credited with Iraqi security gains, there are also complications.
By Kim Gamel, Associated Press
BAGHDAD -- The deaths of nine civilians, including a child, in a U.S. air strike south of Baghdad have raised fresh concerns about the military's ability to distinguish friend from foe in a campaign to uproot insurgents from Sunni areas on the capital's doorstep.
Witnesses and Iraqi police said helicopters strafed a house Saturday after confusing U.S.-allied Sunni fighters for extremists in the deadliest case of mistaken identity since November.
The U.S. military yesterday confirmed the civilian deaths but gave few other details of the Army gunship attack.
The bloodshed also points to the wider complications for U.S.-led offensives against insurgents in populated areas: As the firepower increases, so do the risks of claiming innocent lives, and each such death frays the crucial alliances between the Pentagon and new Sunni allies known as Awakening Councils.
It was one of these groups that apparently was caught in the clash near Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad - an area where U.S.-led forces stepped up an air and ground assault last month against al-Qaeda in Iraq footholds.
A farmer who lives nearby said the Americans retaliated after a mortar attack against a convoy as it passed a checkpoint manned by Awakening Council fighters.
The soldiers apparently thought the barrage came from the Awakening Council fighters, who fled to a nearby house, Issa Mahdi said.
"After a while, U.S. helicopters arrived and bombarded the house where the Awakening members were hiding," he said.
Abu Abeer, who said he was guarding a post nearby when the attack occurred, alleged that the helicopters targeted anyone near the house, in the village of Tal al-Samar. "It was a crime and it shows the Americans' disrespect for Iraqi blood," he said.
The U.S. military said only that a child and eight other civilians were killed and that three others, including two children, were wounded as U.S. troops pursued suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters.
Lt. Col. James Hutton, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said the strike involved Army helicopters and no American casualties were reported.
U.S. officers met with a local sheikh representing local citizens and expressed condolences to the families of those killed, according to a brief e-mailed statement.
Some Sunni leaders worry about future cracks in Sunni cooperation with U.S. forces, which the Pentagon credits as a key reason behind a sharp drop in violence in recent months around Iraq.
"Al-Qaeda could exploit such mistrust in order to win back some Awakening Council members who defected from it," Sunni lawmaker Salman al-Jumaili said.
"I think that the Awakening Council members have served their country in the best way," he said, "and any attempt to hurt them, even if it is by mistake, could endanger the political process in the country."
In November, a leader of one of the Awakening Councils said U.S. soldiers killed dozens of his fighters during a 12-hour battle north of Baghdad. The U.S. military acknowledged killing 25 men but said the men were insurgents "in the target area" where al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters were believed to be hiding.
The U.S. military investigated the incident, but the two versions of events were never reconciled.
A month later, the U.S. military said its forces accidentally killed two people in Baqubah, northeast of Baghdad. One was later identified as an Awakening Council member.