"We regret when civilians are hurt or killed while coalition forces search to rid Iraq of terrorism," US military spokesman Major Brad Leighton told AFP.

Iraqi officials claimed that 13 civilians died in an airstrike by US helicopters early Friday on a building in Baghdad's southwestern Dora district, a hotbed of Sunni insurgency.

Among the dead pulled from the rubble of a building in the Al-Saha neighbourhood of sprawling Dora were seven men, two women and four children, according to a medic at Baghdad's Al-Yarmuk hospital where casualties were brought after the 2 am air strike.

Military spokesman Leighton said US forces had targeted militants lobbing mortars from Dora into a nearby belt of mixed Shiite and Sunni neighbourhoods.

"Surveillance elements saw the group firing their weapons. Responding to this hostile action, coalition forces called for air support and engaged the men," said Leighton.

Another US military spokesman, Major Winfield Danielson, said damage to the building was "as a result of engaging the terrorists."

"Coalition forces target terrorists and Al-Qaeda in Iraq continues to place innocent Iraqis into harm's way while conducting acts of terrorism," Danielson said.

"These criminals continue to deliberately place innocent Iraqi women and children in danger by targeting Iraqi and coalition forces from inhabited areas."

US commander Brigadier General Joseph Anderson said on Friday that US forces had carried out a series of raids in Baghdad, Mahmudiyah, Yusufiyah and Musayyib in which scores of suspects were detained and nearly 20 others killed.

He did not specify if any of the casualties were civilians but said among the dead was Abu Usama al-Tunisi, a Tunisian described as in line to succeed Abu Ayyub al-Masri, Al-Qaeda in Iraq's Egyptian leader.

The military learned that the Tunisian was meeting with other Al-Qaeda in Iraq members south of Baghdad in the vicinity of Musayyib on Tuesday, Anderson told reporters in Washington via a videolink from Baghdad.

"United States Air Force F-16 aircraft attacked the target," said Anderson, the chief of staff of Multi-National Corps Iraq.

"Reporting indicated that several Al-Qaeda members with ties to senior leadership were present at that time. Three were killed, including Tunisi," he said.

In the same area also on Tuesday, according to witnesses and an Iraqi army officer, an airstrike on a house in Babahani village near Musayyib killed five women and four children.

An Iraqi army officer, Lieutenant Hamid al-Lami, told AFP the house belonged to Daham Kadhem al-Janabi, leader of Al-Qaeda in the area.

"He was in charge on carrying out many attacks against US troops and civilians, he was not at home at the time of the raid," Lami said, adding that those killed were mainly relatives of Janabi, including children aged one, two, four and five years old.

A US military statement confirmed a raid on Tuesday on a building in Babahani village and said it had launched an inquiry into the incident.

"According to Iraqi police, the bodies of five adult women and four children were taken to a local hospital in Musayyib Wednesday," the statement said.

"Structures in the area have historically been found to be used as safe houses for Al-Qaeda," it added. "Coalition forces searching a nearby house located (bomb)-making material including command wire, batteries and timers."

Meanwhile, police reported on Saturday that a mortar shell killed Iraqi journalist Abdul Khaliq Nasser in the northern city of Mosul, bringing to four the number of local media workers killed this month.

Nasser, who reported for a newspaper in the city, was killed outside his house in the western Bab al-Bayd area when the artillery round landed nearby late Friday.

earlier related report
A senior Al-Qaeda leader killed in Iraq: US military
A senior leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq was killed in a US air strike in Iraq this week, a US military commander said Friday, calling it a key loss to a group already fractured by US operations.

Brigadier General Joseph Anderson identified the man as Abu Usama al-Tunisi, a Tunisian described as a in line to succeed Abu Ayyub al-Masri, Al-Qaeda in Iraq's Egyptian leader.

Tunisi also led a cell in Yusifiyah that kidnapped and killed two US soldiers June 16, 2006 -- Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Thomas Tucker, 25, according to Anderson.

"Abu Usama al-Tunisi was one of the most senior leaders within Al-Qaeda in Iraq," said Anderson, the chief of staff of Multi-National Corps Iraq.

The general said the September 25 strike that killed al-Tunisi was a "significant blow" to al Qaeda in Iraq, which he said has been severely disrupted by US operations and may now be reassessing its position in Iraq.

He said his opinion was that Al-Qaeda will shift its forces from Iraq to Afghanistan, and try to expand its operations there.

"All we can tell you is that by numbers and how the groups are operating in very remote locations and not collaboratively they're fractured, ruptured, mitigated here. And the question becomes, where would they go? What would they do?" he said.

Anderson detailed a series of raids this month in Baghdad, Mahmudiyah, Yusufiyah and Musayyib in which scores of suspects were detained and nearly 20 others killed. Among those captured were other associates of Tunisi.

The military learned that the Tunisian was meeting with other Al-Qaeda in Iraq members south of Baghdad in the vicinity of Musayyib on Tuesday.

"United States Air Force F-16 aircraft attacked the target," Anderson told reporters here via video linkup from Baghdad.

"Reporting indicated that several Al-Qaeda members with ties to senior leadership were present at that time. Three were killed, including Tunisi," he said.

"His presence was confirmed by one of the two detainees from the operation, one who left the target area just prior to the air strike, who we eventually captured minutes later," he said.

An aerial video of the bombing shown to reporters at the Pentagon indicated that the target was a cluster of buildings in what appeared to be a rural area.

Ground forces recovered a handwritten note at the site that was believed to have been written by Tunisi, Anderson said, displaying a slide with photographs of the note.

"The key points in this hand-written note include, he's surrounded, communications have been cut and he's desperate for help," he said.

"What I make of that is that we're having great success in isolating these pockets," Anderson said.

He said the surge in US forces since the start of the year had driven Al-Qaeda in Iraq forces out of the Baghdad area into provinces north and west of the capital.

"They are very broken up, very unable to mass, and conducting very isolated operations," he said.

"And I think what that little note says is that he was very desperate; he wasn't getting the materials, the supplies, the guidance information; anything he needed."

Anderson said Tunisi oversaw the movement of foreign fighters in Iraq and hooked them up with cells launching suicide attacks and car bombings in the Baghdad area.

"He was the emir of foreign terrorists in Iraq and, as I stated, part of the inner leadership circle of Al Qaeda in Iraq who had direct contact with Abu Ayyub al-Masri," Anderson said.

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