JACKI LYDEN, host:
In the northern Iraqi town of Hawija today, a husband and wife were killed and their young daughter was wounded during an American raid. The Americans say the operation was conducted with and approved by Iraq security forces, as stipulated by an agreement that went into effect at the beginning of the year. But a senior Iraqi government spokesman says there were no Iraqi forces present and is calling for an investigation of the deaths. NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro reports from Baghdad.
LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO: Contacted by NPR by phone, Hussein Ali, the father of the Iraqi man who was killed, described what happened at 2 a.m. this morning this way.
Mr. HUSSEIN ALI: (Arabic spoken)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: The Americans were on foot, he says. They threw percussion hand grenades at the door. Then they started shooting. When I got inside the house, he says, the Americans were gone. I found the two of them in the bedroom, dead beside each other. They shot my son at close range. His blood was all over the wall, he says.
His son, Dhia Hussein Ali, was a former colonel in Saddam Hussein's army, but the father says that after the U.S.-led invasion, he became a farmer. When the killings took place, he was asleep at his home with his wife and five children, one of whom, a girl, was injured.
The U.S. military says the slain man was targeted because it received information that he was a member of al-Qaeda in Iraq. A U.S. military statement described what happened this way. When coalition and Iraqi forces were clearing the building, they entered a room and saw a woman reaching under the mattress, the statement says. The force repeatedly gave instruction in Arabic for the woman to show her hands, but she failed to comply. Perceiving hostile intent, forces engaged the woman, killing her, the statement says.
After American forces killed his wife in front of him, the U.S. military statement said that the man, also in bed, physically attacked them. They then killed him, too. The Americans say only a pistol was found afterwards under the mattress where the couple were sleeping.
The U.S. military says that the operation was, quote, "fully coordinated with Iraqi authorities who were also present for the operation." But speaking by phone to NPR, the spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, Brigadier General Abdul Kareem Khalaf, says that it was not a joint operation.
Brigadier General ABDUL KAREEM KHALAF: (Arabic spoken)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: He says, we have asked for a full investigation, and we have asked for an explanation from the Americans regarding what happened. There were no Iraqi forces with them.
Under the security agreement that came into effect on January 1, American forces can conduct raids alone, but only with Iraqi approval. General Khalaf told NPR it wasn't clear yet whether that approval had actually been granted. Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, NPR News, Baghdad.
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