SMALL CHILDREN WITH THEIR PARENTS KILLED BY US STRIKES IN BAGHDAD

13 killed as fighting rages in Baghdad
Small children with their parents killed by US strikes targeting ‘criminals’ in Baghdad’s Sadr City.

BAGHDAD - Security forces killed 13 people in clashes in Sadr City overnight, leaving parts of the east Baghdad Shiite militia bastion under siege despite the lifting on Saturday of a two-week blockade.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=25358

A US military statement listed the dead in the battles as two snipers, two "criminals" firing rocket-propelled grenades, six gunmen wielding machine guns and automatic weapons, and three men placing roadside bombs.

The US and Iraqi forces hit back with small-arms fire, a Hellfire missile fired from an unmanned aircraft and artillery shells blasted from a M1A2 Abrams tank, the statement said.

The fighting erupted at around 9:00 pm (1800 GMT) in Sadr City, a sprawling district of east Baghdad controlled by the Mahdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the statement said.

Residents showed an AFP photographer a house in the Jamila sector of Sadr City which had been hit during an air strike.

Neighbours said that two small children and their parents were killed and another five family members wounded in the strike.

Hospital officials said women and children were among those killed and wounded but declined to give a breakdown.

Click on link for rest of story.