Report: 5 children killed, 3 wounded in U.S. airstrike on house in Samarra

Above: An Air Force B-1B Lancer awaits its next mission August 13 at an undisclosed base in Southwest Asia. According to the military, a B-1 hit deliberate targets such as a safe house and roads in Salman Pak and Samarra with multiple Guided Bomb Units on Aug. 21.

U.S. forces said they bombed a house in the Iraqi city of Samarra on Sunday after fighters attacked them, and police said five children and two women were among the dead.

"At approximately noon today, 12 men in a white truck got out of the truck, ran into a house where we had soldiers in an overwatch position and attacked our soldiers," Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Donnelly, spokesman for U.S. forces in northern Iraq, said in an e-mail.

He said the attackers fled to another house and were tracked from the air by a U.S. surveillance drone.

"We dropped a precision guidance bomb on the house following positive identification," he said, adding that he could not confirm the number killed...

Saadoun Mohammad, a police officer at Samarra General Hospital, said the hospital's morgue had received the bodies of five children and two women killed in the strike. He said eight people were wounded, including three children and a woman.

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