American occupation troops killed 13 gunmen in a raid south of Baghdad early Friday, the military said. Soldierss were acting on intelligence reports saying a suspect with links to al-Qaeda in Iraq was in the building in Muqdadiyah, 60 miles north of Baghdad, the military said, according to the AP.
The building was surrounded and stormed after those inside did not respond to demands to surrender, the military said in a statement. Five people died inside the building, while eight other men who fled were shot dead by troops on the ground and planes or helicopters circling above, the report said.
Meanwhile, five more US troops have died in Iraq, the US military announced.
Three US soldiers were killed in a single attack on Thursday afternoon when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Baghdad, AFP reported.
On the same day, a marine was killed in Anbar province in the west of the country, a US statement said, while confirming another death "due to non-combat causes" on Wednesday.
