8 Killed in Baghdad Shootout; Child Slain

At least eight people were killed here Wednesday in a gun battle between troops and suspected insurgents, and the U.S. military said a child had been killed during a raid in the northern city of Mosul.

Iraqi troops backed by U.S. forces attacked a house in the Mansour district of Baghdad after a man who said he had been kidnapped by gunmen living there was freed and tipped off police.

In the five-hour shootout, troops killed five suspected insurgents and detained one, said Iraqi army Brig. Abdeljalil Khalaf, the area’s military commander. Two police officers and a soldier were killed, and eight were wounded.

The U.S. military said in a statement Wednesday that in a raid Tuesday on a suspected insurgent safe house in Mosul, U.S. troops killed a child and wounded another while killing seven suspected insurgents.

The statement said, “One of the terrorists picked up a small child.... The same bullet that killed him also killed the child as it exited the terrorist’s body.”

Also in Mosul, the bureau chief of an Iraqi daily newspaper and a woman working for Iraq’s state-run TV were shot and killed in separate attacks, authorities said Wednesday.

Firas Maadhidi, who headed the Mosul bureau of the Lebanese newspaper As Safir, was gunned down Tuesday night while on his way home, Ninevah province police Brig. Gen. Saeed Ahmed Jibouri said.

In other developments Wednesday, gunmen shot Ahlam Youssef, an engineer who worked for state-run Al Iraqiya television, and her husband, said Bassem Fadli, a manager at the station’s headquarters in Baghdad.

In Basra, about 500 civilians and police rallied to denounce “British aggression” after British troops used force Monday to free two of their own being held by Iraqi police.