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U.S. warplanes mistakenly bomb Kurdish PUK
position in Iraq
9.2.2007
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February 9, 2007
BAGHDAD, February 9, -- A U.S.
airstrike hit a Kurdish position in northern Iraq,
killing at least eight Kurdish troops and wounding
six, Iraqi officials said Friday. The U.S. military
said it was looking into the report.
The strike hit just before midnight Thursday in
Mosul, according to officials with the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan, the party headed by Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani, a staunch supporter of
U.S. efforts in Iraq.
Sheik Kabir Goran, deputy in charge of the party's
branch in Mosul, said U.S. warplanes hit a guard
post that was protecting the PUK branch in eastern
Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. He said eight
Kurdish guards were killed and six were wounded in
the strike.
Goran identified those killed as peshmerga, members
of the Kurdish militia that fought Saddam Hussein's
regime for decades.
Many peshmerga fighters have been incorporated into
the Iraqi military since the U.S.-led invasion.
Maj. Gen. Wathiq Mohammed Abdul-Qadir, the commander
of the provincial police, confirmed the airstrike
and gave the same casualty toll.
Goran said U.S. forces went to the post after the
airstrike and provided care to the wounded before
returning them to the PUK branch. He said the
Americans promised to return later Friday to explain
what happened.
Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military
spokesman in Baghdad, said the reports were being
investigated.
Prominent Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman, who is
not a PUK member but has strong ties to the
community, expressed anger over the attack.
"This is not a good sign for the new security plan
that they (U.S. forces) have started by attacking
the people who support them," he told The Associated
Press.
A separate U.S. airstrike killed eight suspected
terrorists and destroyed a building south of
Baghdad, the U.S. military said Friday.
The attack occurred Thursday night in Arab Jabour, a
mostly Sunni Muslim suburb south of Baghdad.
American troops came under "heavy enemy fire during
a raid targeting al-Qaida in Iraq terrorists and
foreign fighter facilitators," the U.S. military
said in a statement.
Coalition aircraft swooped in, dropping precision
bombs on a building where eight suspects had
barricaded themselves, the statement said.
All eight were killed. No U.S. forces or Iraqi
civilians were injured in the attack, the military
said.
An Iraqi army officer, who asked for anonymity
because he was not authorized to talk to media,
confirmed the raid and number of people killed. He
added that Iraqi soldiers did not take part in the
clashes.
AP
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