The US military said Tuesday it killed four suspected members of the al-Qaeda in Iraq group and detained 10 in operations against the network in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul while police officials in the city said four people from the same family were killed by US troops.
US troops killed the four suspected members of al-Qaeda hiding in a building in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, after the suspects refused to surrender, a US military statement said.
Four other suspects on the scene were detained, one of them for "his alleged role in manufacturing and distributing bombing components," according to the statement.
In another operation in Mosul, US troops captured a suspected member of al-Qaeda, who "is believed to oversee attacks and facilitate the movement of foreign terrorists into the city."
A police official said US troops killed four people from the same family and arrested four in a dawn raid on their home in al-Mahata area, in south Mosul.
The victims include the father and his three sons, the unnamed official said.
It is not clear whether the incident was related to the raid cited in the US military statement, in which four people were killed and four captured.
At the funeral ceremony, some 300 mourners carrying photographs of the slain family staged a protest, according to an unnamed police official.
The protestors, who passed by the headquarters of the municipality, denounced the US presence in Iraq, the official said.
Iraqi and US troops are mounting an offensive against insurgents from al-Qaeda, who are believed to have regrouped in the northern Nineveh province after they were driven out of Baghdad and other areas over the past year.
Also in Mosul, gunmen killed a television presenter Mohialdin al-Naqib as he was leaving his home north of the city to go to work, police officials said.
Al-Naqib, 50, worked with Nineveh's television and radio station, which is part of the state-owned Iraqi Media network.
In a fresh attack on members of tribal police known as Awakening Councils, a suicide bomber riding a motorcycle targeted a checkpoint manned by council members in Saba Abkar, north of Baghdad, police said.
Four council members were killed and two civilians were injured in the bombing.
Awakening Councils are set up in Sunni-dominated areas by clans with US backing to fight al-Qaeda insurgents.
In Baquba, 60 kilometres north-east of Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb near a police checkpoint in Tahrir, according to police officials.
Two policemen were killed and 15 people wounded, including eight policemen.
Violence in Baquba, the capital of the restive Diyala province, has been unabated despite an ongoing offensive jointly mounted by US and Iraqi troops.
Around 700 extra US troops were sent to the area as part of a troop surge in 2007.
Diyala is a mixed Sunni and Shiite province, with farmlands and palm groves, which provide natural safe havens for insurgents, reported dpa.