Three Iraqi villagers killed in U.S. attack on farmhouse

? U.S. soldiers backed by helicopters firing rockets attacked this village Tuesday, killing three Iraqis in a farmhouse and wounding three others. U.S. forces said they acted after being fired on, but residents maintained the Americans attacked without provocation.

The fighting west of Baghdad came hours before President Bush told the United Nations that American forces were “conducting precision raids against terrorists and holdouts from the former regime.” The incident also highlighted the difficulties of combating guerrillas in densely populated areas, and was likely to deepen resentment of the U.S. occupation here.

The U.S. military confirmed a combined air-ground assault took place here but said it knew of only one death — that of a guerrilla fighter. A military spokeswoman, Spc. Nicole Thompson, said that after firing on an American patrol, the attackers ran into a building. She said the soldiers then called in air support.

Villagers insisted no one had fired on the Americans. They did say that U.S. soldiers detained three young men during a security sweep Sunday.

Residents said the Americans appeared in the village about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday and began firing with light weapons. Villagers later heard aircraft approaching.

Soon afterward, six missiles struck the home of Ali Khalaf Mohammed, killing the 45-year-old farmer. Two of Mohammed’s sons, aged 11 and 9 years old, were wounded.

Villagers said two other men — Saadi Fayad and Salem Ismail — were killed after they rushed to Mohammed’s house to offer assistance.

Five craters ranging up to 10 feet wide and three feet deep could be seen in the courtyard of Mohammed’s home. A sixth rocket crashed through the roof. The yard of the house was strewn with broken glass and a wall on one side of the building was pocked with bullet holes.

The soldiers involved in Tuesday’s incident were from the 82nd Airborne Division, the same command that mistakenly killed eight Iraqi policemen and a Jordanian guard Sept. 12 in Fallujah.

Jouri Mohammed, sister of Ali Khalaf Mohammed, grieves for her brother's death next to a missle crater in the yard of their farm north of Fallujah, Iraq. U.S. soldiers on Tuesday fired six missiles at the farm.

Other developments

  • U.S. soldiers detained an Associated Press photographer and driver on Tuesday, handcuffing them, forcing them to stand in the sun for three hours and denying them water or use of a telephone.

Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 70th Armored Regiment, 1st Armored Division detained photographer Karim Kadim and driver Mohammed Abbas, both Iraqis, near Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, and kept their guns trained on them, despite repeated attempts to explain they were journalists.

  • U.S. Marines handed control of the Shiite city of Najaf to a Spanish-led multinational force Tuesday after a three-week delay due to a deadly car bombing that raised tensions in the holy city.

A top Shiite Muslim cleric was among at least 85 people killed in the Aug. 29 attack outside the Imam Ali mosque, the most sacred Shiite Muslim shrine in Iraq.

U.S. forces postponed the handover of Najaf to organize and train a special Iraqi police force to protect the shrine.

  • Iraq’s U.S.-appointed Governing Council on Tuesday barred journalists from two Arab satellite news channels from government buildings and press conferences.

The council said the two-week ban was imposed on Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya — two of the most popular television news stations in the Middle East — because it suspected the stations had violated rules that include not disclosing information about pending attacks on American troops.

A spokesman for Ahmad Chalabi, the current Governing Council president, accused the stations of “inciting violence” against U.S.-led coalition forces and Iraqi officials.

  • Mark Fineman, an award-winning correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, died Tuesday while on assignment in Iraq of an apparent heart attack. He was 51.

Fineman was waiting with a colleague in the offices of the Iraqi Governing Council for an interview when he complained of chest pains and collapsed, Times staffers in Baghdad said. He was taken to a hospital but doctors could not revive him.