Updated at 5:55 p.m. EDT, Sept. 19, 2008
At least 16 Iraqis were killed and 20 more were wounded in the latest attacks, which included a U.S. airstrike that killed civilians. No Coalition deaths were reported. Also, South Korea will pull all remaining troops stationed in Iraq by the end of the year.
A U.S. airstrike killed as many as eight civilians during a raid in Dour. A three-year-old child was pulled alive from the rubble and rushed to hospital. There are conflicting reports both to the number of victims and whether or not any of them were the al-Qaeda militants the U.S. troops were after. A policeman said that the dead including five men and three women.
In Baghdad, six people were wounded during a bombing in Yarmouk. A bomb in Safraniyah left no reported casualties.
In Mosul, a roadside bomb in a western neighborhood wounded three policemen. Gunmen in Yabsa stormed a home, killing the parents and injuring four other family members.
Gunmen killed a woman in Tuz Khormato. The Interior Ministry replaced the police chief with an officer of Arab ethnicity. They added that the chief’s performance was satisfactory but refused to give any reasons for the sacking. The population of Tuz Khormato is ethnically mixed, and Baghdad has been trying to assert its dominance over multi-ethnic regions in nearby Diyala and Ninewa provinces. This switch could be part of that same agenda.
Iraqi and U.S. forces detained the Abu Saida district chief during a raid on his home. No reasons were given, but many political and security leaders in Diyala province have been targeted for detention during recent operations.
In Balad Ruz, two Iraqi army officers were killed in a roadside bomb blast. A Katyusha rocket attack left one dead and six wounded.
Two bodies were found in Tal Afar.
Ammunition was found in Suwayra.
In Kut, a raid netted a “special groups” leader. A body bearing torture wounds was found.
Migration officials reported that 102 families that had fled to Karbala due to violence have now returned to their homes across Iraq.
Eleven U.S. detainees were freed in Kirkuk.
Compiled by Margaret Griffis
