Air strikes kill 30 Iraqi 'militants'

US air strikes in Baghdad yesterday killed what the American military said were 30 militants suspected of transporting roadside bombs from Iran, but local authorities said civilians were among the dead.

Hospital officials put the death toll in the area at 13. A US military spokesman said there were no civilian casualties in the strikes by helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft in Sadr City, a sprawling Shi'ite slum in northeastern Baghdad.

"There were women and children in the area when we conducted the operation, but none were killed in the air strike," Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver said. The manager of the Imam Ali Hospital in Sadr City said 10 people were killed, one of them a woman, and seven men wounded. Sadr City Hospital had received three bodies, its manager said, and four wounded, including a 13-year-old boy.

Police said 11 people died, including women and children.

The predawn raid came hours before a vehicle curfew was imposed in the city, ahead of a major Shi'ite ceremony that two years ago saw the deadliest single incident in Iraq's four-year conflict. More than 1,000 people were killed in a stampede.