Baghdad, Iraq ? A U.S. air strike north of the capital Wednesday killed 11 people – most of them women and children, said police and relatives of the victims. The U.S. military said it captured the target of the raid, a man suspected of supporting al-Qaida fighters.

But the military said only four people were killed – a man, two women and a child.

“Troops were engaged by enemy fire as they approached the building,” said Tech. Sgt. Stacy Simon, a military spokeswoman. “Coalition forces returned fire utilizing both air and ground assets.”

Police Capt. Laith Mohammed said the attack near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, involved U.S. warplanes and armor that flattened a house in the village of Isahaqi. An Associated Press reporter at the scene said the roof of the house had collapsed, three cars were destroyed and two cows were killed.

Relatives said the 11 victims were wrapped in blankets and driven in three pickup trucks to the Tikrit General Hospital, about 45 miles to the north.

AP photographs showed the bodies of two men, five children and four other covered figures arriving at the hospital accompanied by grief-stricken relatives. The victims were covered in dust with bits of rubble tangled in their hair.

Riyadh Majid, who identified himself as the nephew of Faez Khalaf, the head of the household who was killed, told AP at the hospital that U.S. forces landed in helicopters and raided the home early Wednesday.

Khalaf’s brother, Ahmed, said nine of the victims were family members who lived at the house and two were visitors.

“The dead family was not part of the resistance, they were women and children,” he said. “The Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only death.”

The U.S. military said they caught the target of the raid, a man suspected of supporting foreign fighters of the al-Qaida in Iraq terror network.