Iraq: A coalition atrocity?

channel4news: Iraqi's claim US forces killed forty people near the Syrian border.

Atrocity or precision attack? Local people in Western Iraq have accused American warplanes of hitting two houses, killing forty people, twelve of them children.

The US military has denied any knowledge of civilian casualties - it said a building being used by an Al-Qaeda cell was bombed, along with a munitions store. Link

db: The above pictures are screen grabs from the C4 News report broadcast last night. The brother of the owner of one of the houses flattened in the US 'precision' attack [top left] said "Inside the house were 25 family members. This home was attacked and destroyed, most of them were killed. I wonder where democracy is. All I see here is the killing of families and the destroying of their homes."

The C4 reporter said that it appears 'women and children were inside' the building at the time of the bombing - the pictures show at least ten bodies and one of a child. The film was shot by a local cameraman- and according to C4 "many of the images were too shocking to see".

The Americans told C4 that their intelligence suggested that collateral damage from this raid would not be too great.

The Scottish Daily Record reported: YANKS 'KILL 12 KIDS' IN ATTACK

The Guardian reported - via AP - the following:

U.S. Marines supported by warplanes and helicopters have been raiding targets in towns and villages near Iraq's desolate border with Syria in an effort to disrupt Iraqi and foreign insurgents. Early Monday, U.S. jets attacked a "safe house'' apparently being used by a senior al-Qaida in Iraq cell leader in Obeidi, a border town 185 miles west of Baghdad, the military said. The jets also used precision-guided munitions to attack a second house suspected of being a base for attacks against American and Iraqi forces, the U.S. command said. Its statement mentioned no casualties and did not identify the al-Qaida in Iraq leader by name. At the local hospital, Dr. Ahmed al-Ani claimed 40 Iraqis, including 12 children, were killed in the attack. But the claim could not be independently verified.