Soldiers kill 6 Iraqis in Ramadi gunbattle

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. soldiers fought with suspected insurgents using a building as a safe house in Ramadi on Tuesday, killing one Iraqi man and five females, ranging in age from an infant to teenagers, the U.S. military said.

Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, has been the scene of some of Iraq's fiercest fighting between U.S. forces and Sunni insurgents. It is the capital of Anbar province, where many Iraqi insurgents are based.

The bloodshed came on a day that saw sectarian violence kill 10 other Iraqis and wound about 50, police said. The bodies of 50 torture victims also were discovered, most of them in Baghdad and the city of Baqouba to the north, police said. Several of the corpses had been dumped at a bus station or outside a government building.

The battle in Ramadi began when a U.S. patrol discovered a roadside bomb in the Hamaniyah section of the city, and two suspected insurgents fled to a house, where they took up positions on the roof, the military said.

As coalition forces removed the bomb, the militants fired on the soldiers, who fought back with machine guns and tanks, the statement said.

Afterward, coalition forces searched the house and found the six bodies, ranging in age from an infant to teenagers, the military said, without providing ages. Another female was wounded but refused treatment, it said.

One of the gunmen may have been wounded and removed from the scene by other militants, the statement said, adding that there were no coalition casualties.

The military quoted residents as saying the building "was a known anti-Iraqi force safe house."

Marine Lt. Col. Bryan Salas, a military spokesman, said efforts were under way to assist survivors.

A U.S. Marine died Monday in another area of Anbar province, the military said, raising to at least 2,881 the number of members of the American military who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed the United States for the chaos in Iraq, saying the answer to the violence is the withdrawal of foreign forces.

But following Khamenei's comments, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to extend for one year the mandate of the 160,000-strong multinational force in Iraq.

The council acted ahead of a key meeting in Jordan between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki aimed at halting escalating violence in the country and paving the way for a reduction of American troops.