Iraqis say US raid killed 11 family members

TIKRIT, Iraq, Mar 15 (Reuters) Eleven members of an Iraqi family were killed in a US raid today, police and witnesses said. The US military said two women and a child died during the bid to seize an al Qaeda militant from a house.

Television pictures showed 11 bodies in the Tikrit morgue -- five children, two men and four women. A freelance photographer later saw the bodies being buried in Ishaqi, the town 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad where the raid took place.

''Troops were engaged by enemy fire as they approached the building,'' US spokesman Major Tim Keefe said. ''Coalition Forces returned fire utilising both air and ground assets.

''There was one enemy killed. Two women and one child were also killed in the firefight. The building ... (was) destroyed.'' Major Ali Ahmed of the Ishaqi police said US forces had landed on the roof of the house in the early hours and shot the 11 occupants, including the five children.

''After they left the house they blew it up,'' he said.

REUTERS SHR RN2128