Iraqi police: U.S. airstrike kills 5 Kurdish troops, wounds 6 in northern Iraq

(AP) U.S. helicopters on Friday mistakenly killed at least five Kurdish troops, a group that Washington hopes to enlist as a partner to help secure Iraq, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

The Kurdish deaths occurred about midnight in eastern Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. The U.S. military said the airstrike was targeting al-Qaida fighters, but later issued an apology, saying the five men killed had been identified as Kurdish police.

Kurdish officials put the casualty toll at eight killed and six wounded, and said the men were guarding a branch of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan _ led by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a key supporter of U.S. efforts in Iraq.

The U.S. military said the attack was launched after ground forces identified armed men in a bunker near a building they thought was being used to make bombs. The troops called for the men to put down their weapons in Arabic and Kurdish and fired warning shots before helicopters fired at the bunker, the military said.

Mahmoud Othman, a prominent Kurdish lawmaker who is not a PUK member but has strong ties to the community, said that for U.S. troops, the incident amounted to "attacking the people who support them."

"This is not a good sign for the new security plan that they (U.S. forces) have started," Othman said.

Separately, the U.S. military said three American soldiers died Thursday in fighting in western Anbar province, bringing the total number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq this month to 33. The statement announcing the deaths provided no details about the outcome of the fighting.

A roadside bomb killed one British soldier and wounded three others Friday in southern Iraq, raising the number of British combat deaths since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to 101.

The Iraqi government also gave its first public response to the arrest on Thursday of Deputy Health Minister Hakim al-Zamili, accused of diverting millions of dollars to the biggest Shiite militia and allowing death squads to use ambulances and government hospitals for kidnappings and killings.

Sadiq al-Rikabi, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said no one would be immune from a security crackdown in Baghdad.

"If it is proved he (al-Zamili) is innocent, then he will be set free, otherwise he should receive his punishment," al-Rikabi said. "This is our clear message and (the security plan) will be carried out far away from any political or sectarian calculations."

Politicians allied with the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, commander of the militia allegedly courted by al-Zamili, denounced the minister's arrest as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and demanded that al-Maliki intervene to win his release.

Shiite cleric Mohammed al-Haidari said al-Zamili was detained "without a warrant and without the knowledge of the prime minister."

He also denounced the abduction of an Iranian diplomat in Baghdad that Tehran has blamed on the U.S., despite denials by Washington. And he warned the tensions between the U.S. and Iran were harming Iraq.

"We are a weak country and we do not need problems," he said during Friday prayers in Baghdad. "If America has problems with Iran, then it should settle them outside Iraq, the United States should not make Iraq the field for this dispute."

Another U.S. airstrike Thursday night killed eight suspected insurgents and destroyed a building in Arab Jabour, a mostly Sunni Muslim suburb south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

American troops came under "heavy enemy fire during a raid targeting al-Qaida in Iraq terrorists and foreign fighter facilitators," the military said, adding that no U.S. forces or Iraqi civilians were injured.

In Mosul, Sheik Kabir Goran, deputy in charge of the PUK's branch, identified those killed as peshmerga _ members of the Kurdish militia that fought Saddam Hussein's regime for decades. Many peshmerga were incorporated into the Iraqi military since the U.S.-led invasion. Some Kurdish forces are slated to take over a key role in pacifying Baghdad during the U.S.-Iraqi security plan.

Goran said U.S. forces went to the Kurdish post after the airstrike and provided care to the wounded before returning them to the PUK branch. The U.S. military said nine people also were detained and turned over to Iraqi police.

Serko Othman, a foreign affairs officer for the PUK in Sulaimaniyah, said a joint committee comprising Kurdish and U.S. forces would investigate the attack.

"They told us that this was friendly fire and we think that they thought it was training camp for militants," Othman said.

Also Friday, police said gunmen dressed in Iraqi army uniforms swept into a village about 47 miles south of Baghdad before dawn, kidnapping 13 civilians and killing at least 11 of them.

The attack occurred in Imam, a predominantly Shiite village. Police later found 11 bodies with gunshot wounds to the head and chest, and they were believed to be those who had been kidnapped, police and the Iraqi army said.

Iraqi army spokesman, 1st Lt. Murad al-Maamouri, said the gunmen wore Iraqi army uniforms and drove military vehicles, but added they were not government soldiers.

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Associated Press writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report from Baghdad.