At least 14 civilians were killed when US forces and Iraqi National Guardsmen battled insurgents in the city of Ramadi today, a hospital official said.
Mr Moneim Aaaftan, the director of Ramadi Hospital, said he had been told the fighting took place at a checkpoint on the edge of the city, 110 km west of Baghdad.
He said a group of workers were among the dead.
Earlier US forces said they had killed 12 people in a firefight and bombing close to the Syrian border. They said six soldiers of the US-led coalition in Iraq were wounded in the fight against suspected members of al Qaeda's wing in Iraq, which is headed by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. A six-year-old girl was also wounded.
Coalition forces followed a truck that drove to a small camp from a suspected guerrilla location at the town of al Qaim, 322 kilometres northwest of Baghdad and 1.6 kilometres from the Syrian border, the US military said.
The truck was loaded with material from a shed and tent at the camp and several adult males also boarded the truck before it headed back towards al Qaim, the statement said.
"Before the occupants in the vehicle could reach their destination the commander of the operation decided to interdict the vehicle; upon stopping the truck, the suspected insurgents opened fire on Coalition forces," it said.
"A firefight ensued with nine enemy adult males killed in action and one enemy wounded." The US military said a six-year-old girl "sustained a minor injury to her right calf and to her head" and a suspected insurgent was also wounded.
All of the nine men killed were heavily armed with assault rifles and hand grenades, the US military said. Three more people were killed by a coalition airstrike on the camp.
Coalition forces found fake identification cards, foreign currency and other things which the US military said linked the people at the camp and on the truck to Zarqawi's network.
Agencies