Women, children die during raid in Iraq

BAGHDAD — Eleven Iraqis, including women and children, were killed Sunday after U.S. forces came under attack by gunfire and a suicide bomber during a raid in Mosul, the military said. No U.S. casualties were immediately reported.

Elsewhere in the northern city, gunmen opened fire on mourners in a funeral tent, killing four people and wounding three others, according to Iraqi officials.

Violence has declined drastically throughout Iraq, but Mosul remains a major security challenge despite recent U.S.-Iraqi military operations aimed at routing al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents from the city.

In the Mosul raid, American troops came under heavy gunfire after entering a house believed to be holding a suspected insurgent on Sunday, and a man inside detonated a suicide vest, the military said in a statement.

Five militants as well as three women and three children were killed, according to the statement. It did not specify how the people died, nor reported their ethnicities.

In other violence, a bomb targeted a convoy carrying Western contractors in the southern city of Basra, officials said. One Iraqi was wounded, but no one in the convoy was harmed.

The attack occurred as the contractors were headed to a new children's hospital to inspect work on the building, said Maj. Bill Young, a spokesman for the British military in Iraq.

He said there were three civilian cars with workers from a Western construction company. No members of the British military were present.

An Iraqi police official in Basra said one Iraqi civilian was wounded. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Also Sunday, the U.S. military raised the number of people injured in a helicopter crash in Baghdad the previous night from four to five. It said three were Americans.

Two U.S. helicopters collided while landing at a base in Baghdad late Saturday. One Iraqi soldier was killed.

Egypt renews

relations with Iraq

BAGHDAD — Egypt sent its foreign minister to Iraq Sunday for the first time in nearly two decades in a sign of growing Arab acceptance of the country's Shiite-led government.

"We hope that peace and security will prevail in Iraq," Ahmed Aboul Gheit said. He told reporters Egypt was ready to open a new embassy and help with reconstruction of Iraq's oil industry.

It was the first visit to Iraq by an Egyptian foreign minister since 1990, when President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and his regime was largely shunned by Arab governments.

The U.S. has been urging the mostly Sunni-run Arab countries to shore up relations with Shiite-led Iraq as a counterweight to the influence of Shiite-dominated Iran. But the Arabs were reluctant during the height of Shiite-Sunni fighting, which receded last year after the U.S. troop buildup.

The Associated Press