BAGHDAD – Eight Iraqis were killed on Saturday, most of them securitypersonnel, in a United States (US) air strike that apparently targeted themby mistake, a provincial official said.

“Eight people — a senior intelligence official, five policemen and a woman— were killed by a US strike on the centre of Al-Baghdadi,” a town inwestern Iraq, the official said, asking not to be identified.

“It seems the strike was a mistake,” the official said of the incident inthe Euphrates Valley town, adjacent to the Ain al-Asad airbase 250kilometres west of the capital.

The dead were travelling in a convoy which had been deployed to support anoperation against suspected Islamic State (IS) group militants in the area.

The strike destroyed most of the vehicles in the convoy and also wounded 20people, including the town’s police chief, who was in a serious condition,the provincial official said.

Iraq’s Joint Operations Command, which coordinates the campaign against IS,said it had ordered a special forces raid in the town after receivingintelligence of a “meeting to be attended by terrorist commander Karimal-Samarmad”.

It said it had requested “air support from the international coalition”.

“Once the terrorist was arrested and while troops were carrying outsearches, a grenade was thrown from an adjacent building.”

As the special forces troops returned to base, they ran into a convoy ofpolice and paramilitaries of the Hashed al-Shaabi auxiliary force that hadbeen sent to support them.

The convoy was composed of pick-up trucks and the returning forces mistookthem for terrorists and called in a coalition air strike, the JOC said.

“An inquiry has been opened.” -Agencies