Iraq: violence also continued

south of &to= english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/101/397/14569_tiger.html ' target=_blank>Baghdad, killing two policemen and three civilians, police said Sunday, a day after the U.S. military acknowledged five people were killed when it bombed the wrong house during a search operation in northern Iraq. The owner of the house, Ali Yousef, said 14 people were killed when the 500-pound GPS-guided bomb hit at about 2 a.m. Saturday in the town of Aitha, 30 miles south of Mosul. An Associated Press photographer at the scene said seven children and seven adults died. The discrepancy between the death counts could not be reconciled. The U.S. military later released a statement saying it regretted the loss of ``possibly innocent lives'' in the strike, which occurred as U.S. ground troops searched for ``an anti-Iraqi force cell leader.'' American troops recently sent more troops to Mosul, which has seen heavy clashes in recent weeks between insurgents and &to= english.pravda.ru/main/2001/10/03/16970.html ' target=_blank>American forces. The attacks come at an extremely delicate time, with Iraq roiled by violence just three weeks before elections for a national assembly. The United States has insisted that the vote go ahead on Jan. 30., informs the Guardian Unlimited. According to ABC News, the United States military said it dropped a 500-pound bomb on the wrong house outside the northern city of Mosul on Saturday, killing five people. The man who owned the house said the bomb killed 14 people, and an Associated Press photographer said seven of them were children. The strike in the town of Aitha, 30 miles south of Mosul, came hours before a senior U.S. Embassy official in Iraq met with leaders of the Sunni Arab community to apply political pressure against their threat to boycott Jan. 30 elections. The Arab satellite broadcaster al-Jazeera said the Sunnis asked the Americans to announce a timetable for a &to= english.pravda.ru/world/2001/06/21/8311.html ' target=_blank>U.S. troop withdrawal. Violence also continued, with at least eight Iraqis killed.

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