BAGHDAD — Nine people were killed and four were injured in an errant U.S. airstrike southeast of Baghdad, the military said Sunday.
One child was among the dead, and two children were among the injured, said U.S. Army Maj. Brad Leighton.
“We offer our condolences to the families of those who were killed in this incident,” Leighton said. “We mourn the loss of innocent life.”
The news came the same day the military announced that a U.S. soldier was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade Thursday in Baghdad. The identity of the soldier was not released, pending notification of next of kin.
At least 3,944 U.S. service members have been killed in Iraq since the conflict began in May 2003, according to the independent website .
At least three members of a so-called concerned local citizens group, or CLC, were among the dead in the airstrike, according to a U.S. military source. The citizens groups are mostly Sunni Arab security forces organized and paid by the U.S. military in hopes that many will be integrated into the Shiite-dominated Iraqi security forces.
The airstrike comes at a time when CLC members are coming under deadly attacks by al-Qaeda in Iraq and other militants because of their affiliation with the United States. The volunteers have received significant praise for their role in the improved security in many areas of the country.
The airstrike occurred late Saturday night when the military spotted what it thought was a team of insurgents readying a roadside bomb in a rural area 25 miles southeast of Baghdad, the military source said.
A U.S. aircraft bombed a house that the suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgents were thought to have entered. A ground search revealed that the site was a CLC checkpoint and the team members’ guns were authorized, the military source said.
Mohammed Ghrairi, the CLC commander in the area, said a U.S. military colonel immediately visited him and apologized. The incident was not reported to the media until the military was contacted by the Los Angeles Times.
In other news, Iraq’s three- member presidency council said Sunday it had issued a law that would allow thousands of former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party to return to government jobs.
The law, however, was issued over the objections of Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, the Sunni Arab member of the council.
“I don’t want to deliver any sort of challenge to the parliament or challenge to the government or the political entities. At the end of the day, what I need is to amend the law,” al-Hashemi said.
The legislation approved by parliament last month allows former Baathists to return to state jobs but also blocks high-ranking members from serving in the security forces, the Foreign Ministry and key leadership posts. The law could allow, by some estimates, about 38,000 low-level party members to regain their jobs.
