Sadr City police report two non-combatants killed in Sadr City airstrike during search for kidnapped Britons

Left: A boy walks through the rubble left after a 'raid' on a house in Sadr City. Armored vehicles have reportedly breached the walls of some houses before troops pour in.

U.S. forces pressed on Thursday with the search for five kidnapped Britons, and a procession of mourners, some of them women wailing and beating their chests, marched through Sadr City behind a small bus carrying the coffins of two people who police said were killed in a U.S. helicopter strike before dawn.

The U.S. military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the alleged attack in the second day of a search for the Britons who were abducted from a Finance Ministry data processing building in eastern Baghdad on Tuesday.

Associated Press Television news video tape from Sadr City showed the coffins of the victims atop a small bus with men and women walking behind, crying. A young boy could be seen sitting next to the coffins on the bus.

A car near where the attack happened was punctured with big holes as if hit by an airstrike.

A police officer in Sadr City, who refused to allow use of his name because he feared retribution, said the helicopter hit a house and car at 4:30 a.m., killing two elderly people sleeping on the roof of their home, a common practice in the extreme heat of Iraq through late spring and summer.

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