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Tanya
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U.S. Airstrike kills 5 Kurds in Iraq
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4541251.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. helicopters targeting insurgents mistakenly killed
at least five allied Kurdish militiamen in the northern city of Mosul
early Friday. The military also reported three more American soldiers
killed in combat, pushing the U.S. death toll to 33 in the first eight
days of the month.
Officials said the Kurds were killed about midnight as they guarded
a branch of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a political party led
by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a key supporter of U.S. efforts in Iraq.
The U.S. military said the strike was launched after American
ground forces spotted armed men in a bunker near a building
they thought was being used to make bombs for al-Qaida in Iraq.
The troops called out in Arabic and Kurdish telling the men to
put down their weapons and also fired warning shots before the
helicopters opened fire, the military said.
Five men later determined to be Kurdish police officers were
killed and nine others were detained, the U.S. military said,
offering condolences to the families of those who died.
Kurdish officials put the casualty toll at eight killed and six wounded.
Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman denounced the airstrike.
"This is not a good sign for the new security plan
that they (U.S. forces) have started," he said.
However, a spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan,
Azad Jundiyan, said the party realized the airstrike
was a mistake. "We are allied with the coalition;
it was a friendly fire incident, not an intentionally hostile act," he
said.
Jundiyan identified the dead as peshmerga - Kurdish militiamen
who once battled Saddam Hussein's regime. Many peshmerga have
been incorporated into the Iraqi army since the U.S.-led invasion.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4541251.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. helicopters targeting insurgents mistakenly killed
at least five allied Kurdish militiamen in the northern city of Mosul
early Friday. The military also reported three more American soldiers
killed in combat, pushing the U.S. death toll to 33 in the first eight
days of the month.
Officials said the Kurds were killed about midnight as they guarded
a branch of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a political party led
by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a key supporter of U.S. efforts in Iraq.
The U.S. military said the strike was launched after American
ground forces spotted armed men in a bunker near a building
they thought was being used to make bombs for al-Qaida in Iraq.
The troops called out in Arabic and Kurdish telling the men to
put down their weapons and also fired warning shots before the
helicopters opened fire, the military said.
Five men later determined to be Kurdish police officers were
killed and nine others were detained, the U.S. military said,
offering condolences to the families of those who died.
Kurdish officials put the casualty toll at eight killed and six wounded.
Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman denounced the airstrike.
"This is not a good sign for the new security plan
that they (U.S. forces) have started," he said.
However, a spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan,
Azad Jundiyan, said the party realized the airstrike
was a mistake. "We are allied with the coalition;
it was a friendly fire incident, not an intentionally hostile act," he
said.
Jundiyan identified the dead as peshmerga - Kurdish militiamen
who once battled Saddam Hussein's regime. Many peshmerga have
been incorporated into the Iraqi army since the U.S.-led invasion.
