U.S. strikes militants as Iraq counts vote

By Andrew Quinn

BAGHDAD, Oct 17 (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes and helicopter gunships killed about 70 suspected militants near the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, the military said on Monday, and a landmark referendum appeared to have backed a new constitution.

Ramadi police said about 20 of those killed in the U.S. strikes were civilians, including some children who had gathered around the wreckage of a U.S. military vehicle. But the U.S. military said it believed they were all "terrorists".

Election officials slowly counted up to 10 million ballots from Saturday's referendum, with partial results pointing to a clear win for a charter Washington hopes will help establish Iraq as a stable democracy able to do without U.S. troops.

Movement of ballot boxes to the Baghdad counting centre was complicated by a sandstorm across much of Iraq which grounded helicopters and prevented any transport of boxes by air.

Opponents of the constitution in the Sunni Arab minority complained of fraud and questioned the time taken for the count.

The Electoral Commission, where officials indicate privately that the charter is all but ratified, said all was in order but very high local votes, both "Yes" and "No", of up to 80 or 90 percent had to be audited in line with international practice.

The violence in Ramadi, a rebellious city about 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, highlighted the challenge posed by Sunni Arab insurgents opposed to the U.S.-backed constitution.

Few people in Ramadi voted, yet for the first time, many Sunnis elsewhere in Iraq took part in the referendum, even if a large majority of them voted "No", provisional figures show.

Iraqis digested the news that the constitution had probably passed, with some hailing it as a good sign and others warning it could push the country closer to complete breakdown.

"If the constitution passes without consideration for the voters who said 'No', it will lead to a sectarian war," said Faisal Houmud, 37, a merchant in the Sunni bastion of Falluja.

Sunni politicians were divided on the issue but several conceded that the constitution would come into force come what may. They would thus focus their energies on an election on Dec. 15 to boost their power to amend it in parliament.

U.S. President George W. Bush hailed the vote, which went off amid tight security and almost without bloodshed in the absence of insurgent attacks the U.S. military had predicted.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, however, said the result showed divisions ran deep and violence might continue:

"We had hoped that the constitutional process would have been an exercise that would have been totally inclusive, and pull together all the Iraqis, helping with reconciliation. Obviously that did not happen and has not happened," he said.

AIR STRIKES

A U.S. military statement said the Ramadi battle occurred on Sunday and involved U.S. jets, helicopters and ground troops.

It said at least 20 suspected militants were killed when an F-15 aircraft bombed a group of men burying a roadside bomb -- one of the deadliest weapons in the insurgent arsenal.

Another 50 militants were killed in a series of separate strikes, the statement added, saying military commanders had no indications of any U.S. or civilian casualties in the operation.

However, Ramadi police Lieutenant Karim Salim said 20 of those killed were civilians, including some children as young as 11. Doctors in the city had made a similar assessment on Sunday.

"Their bodies were completely ripped apart," Salim said.

Iyad al-Dulaimi, a doctor at Ramadi general hospital, told Reuters the hospital had received 20 civilian bodies since U.S. operations in the city began on Friday.

The U.S. military statement said all attacks "were timed and executed in a manner to reduce the possibility of collateral damage" and that it had no reports of any civilian casualties.

Ramadi residents who survived the attack were furious.

"The planes came and bombed us right after prayers," one man shouted as others buried bodies near Ramadi. "These are innocent civilians. To hell with this constitution."

The military said separately that 18 insurgents had been killed in three separate clashes elsewhere in western Iraq.

Iraq's Defence Ministry said separately U.S. and Iraqi troops had killed 12 insurgents south of Baghdad on Sunday.

In the northern city of Mosul, police found the bodies of eight men believed to be Iraqi soldiers shot through the head.

U.S. officials have sought to portray the big Sunni vote as a sign Iraq is moving towards full democracy which will ultimately allow the withdrawal of 156,000 U.S. troops.

Six more U.S. soldiers were killed in the Sunni Arab-dominated west of the country over the weekend, bringing the total U.S. toll to 1,971 since the 2003 invasion.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Hassan, Azeel Kami and Mariam Karouny in Baghdad, and by Ammar al-Alwani in Ramadi)

 http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1765436.htm