US fighter jets dropped two 500-pound bombs on a village in northern Iraq, killing ten Iraqis they claimed were planting explosive devices on a nearby road, the US military said today.
The incident occurred on Tuesday in a small village near the town of Hawija, 50 kilometres (30 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, the military said.
The pilots were flying a routine patrol when they saw three men digging holes by the side of major road and planting bombs in them, a statement said.
When they heard the planes overhead, the men jumped in a car and fled. They were soon joined by another car as the jets tracked them. They drove the cars into the village and tried to hide by parking between two buildings, the statement said. The pilots then dropped two 500-pound laser-guided bombs.
"They were able to destroy the vehicles while causing only minimal damage to surrounding structures," the military said.
US soldiers later raided the village and found assault rifles, a machine gun and bomb-making equipment in houses near the site of the air strike. They said they also found a bomb by the side of the road where the men were first spotted.
Six gunmen broke into a house just south of Baghdad today and killed at least 12 members of the same Shia family. Police said the family had been warned by insurgents to move out of their largely Sunni district, but had not done so.
Earlier, a suicide bomber killed four Iraqi policemen and injured five others when he targeted a checkpoint near the interior ministry in Baghdad.
There were conflicting reports of the incident. One witness said the man was on foot, while another said he was driving a truck.
A US soldier was killed when a roadside bomb struck his vehicle on patrol in eastern Baghdad. Two other US soldiers were killed by roadside bombs in Baghdad on Tuesday, the US military said.