Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Baghdad, Nov 13, (VOI)- A U.S. spokesman said on Tuesday that the operation launched on Monday night in Mosul, where a woman and a child were killed, was targeting al-Qaeda leader and a number of his aides not his family.

“After storming a building where gunmen where purportedly hiding, U.S. forces found a woman’s body and an injured kid, who later died of his wounds while being transported to a hospital,” Janah Hamoud, coordinator in the joint media center of the Multinational forces, quoted a U.S. spokesman as saying.
“U.S. forces conducted an operation in Mosul targeting an alleged terrorist leader in the city. The targeted individual has reportedly been involved in the planning of attacks against Iraqi and Coalition forces, to include several suicide car-bombing attacks, and the purchase of various weapons and explosives,” the U.S. army said in a statement.

“As Coalition forces approached the target building, they were immediately met by enemy fire from the ground floor and roof of the building. Responding in self-defense, Coalition forces engaged the terrorists. As a result of the engagement, a fire erupted in the courtyard and quickly spread to the kitchen. At that time enemy fire ceased. Coalition forces continued to pursue the armed men who fired from the roof and subsequently detained one suspect,” it added.

“After the fire was extinguished, the ground force entered the building and found that one terrorist had been killed during the engagement. Upstairs they found one woman had been killed and one child was injured as a result of the fire. The child received medical care on site, but later died while being transported to a military medical facility,” the army also said.

Mosul, the capital city of Ninewa province, is 402 km north of Baghdad.