BAGHDAD, Oct 21: US ground forces and attack helicopters killed about 49 militants during a raid on a Baghdad’s Sadr City enclave to capture a militia chief who lead a kidnapping ring, the military said.

Iraqi officials said at least 13 people were killed, including women and children.

The military said ground forces were unaware of any civilians killed in the Sadr City strike, and the vast difference in reported death tolls could not immediately be reconciled.

Tensions also rose in northern Iraq after separatist Kurdish rebels ambushed a military unit near Turkey’s border with Iraq, killing at least 12 soldiers and increasing pressure on the Turkish government to send its military across the frontier against guerrilla camps in northern Iraq.Hours later, an Iraqi army officer from the border guard forces, Col Hussein Rashid, said Turkish forces fired about 15 artillery shells toward Kurdish villages in the border area in northern Iraq, but there were no casualties.

In the Sadr City raid, the US military said “an estimated 49 criminals” were killed in three separate engagements during an intelligence-driven raid targeting a suspected rogue Shia militia leader specialising in kidnapping operations partially funded by Iran.

US troops returned fire under sustained attack from automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades from nearby buildings as they began raiding a series of structures in the district, according to a statement. It said 33 militants were killed in the fire fight. Ground forces then called in airstrikes, which killed six more militants.

The troops were attacked by a roadside bomb and continued heavy fire as they left the area and killed 10 more combatants as the left the fire zone.

“All total, coalition forces estimate that 49 criminals were killed in three separate engagements during this operation. Ground forces reported they were unaware of any innocent civilians being killed as a result of this operation,” the military said in the updated statement.

Iraqi police and hospital officials said at least 13 people were killed, including a woman and three children, and 52 were wounded during the 5am raid in the sprawling district.

Associated Press photos showed the bodies of two toddlers, one with a gouged face, swaddled in blankets on the floor of the morgue after relatives said they were killed when helicopter gunfire hit their house as they slept. Their shirts were pulled, exposing their abdomens. A diaper showed above the waistband of the shorts of one of the boys.

Several houses, cars and shops, including a bakery and a large generator, were damaged in the fighting, which witnesses said lasted two hours.

Iraqis have routinely claimed civilians were killed as US-led forces stepped up raids to try to root out extremists in Sadr City and other Shia strongholds as part of an eight-month-old security operation to quell the sectarian violence.

But the number of people reported killed in Sunday’s strike was among the largest.

On Aug 8, the US military said 32 suspected militants were killed and 12 captured in an operation targeting a ring that smuggled armour-piercing roadside bombs from Iran. Iraqi police and witnesses claimed nine civilians, including two women, were killed in that raid.

The sweeps into Sadr City have sent a strong message that US forces plan no letup on suspected Shia militia cells despite risks of upsetting the Shia-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and its efforts at closer cooperation with Shiite heavyweight Iran.

An Iraqi military spokesman, Brig-Gen Qassim al-Moussawi, said the government would ask the Americans for an explanation about Sunday’s raid and stressed the need to avoid civilian deaths in raids in Sadr City and anywhere else.

The government has issued mixed reactions to the raids and airstrikes, particularly those that have targeted Sunni extremists.

US troops backed by attack aircraft killed 19 suspected insurgents and 15 civilians, including nine children, in an operation Oct 11 targeting Al Qaida in Iraq leaders northwest of Baghdad.

In that case, al-Maliki’s government said the killings of the 15 women and children were a ‘sorrowful matter’, but emphasised that civilian deaths are unavoidable in the fight against Al Qaida in Iraq.

Relatives gathered at Sadr City’s Imam Ali hospital as the emergency room was overwhelmed with bloodied victims and the dead were placed in caskets covered by Iraqi flags.—AP