U.S. roadblock shootings in Iraq kill at least 5, including 2 Baghdad bank workers

BAGHDAD — American troops fired on vehicles trying to drive through roadblocks, killing at least five people, including one child, in two separate incidents, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

One shooting in Baghdad took place in a northern neighborhood known to be a Shiite militia stronghold as the driver of a minibus collected employees to go to work at the Rasheed bank, police said.

U.S. troops fired on the bus after the driver approached a U.S. roadblock Tuesday morning and tried to drive through. As many as four passengers were killed, including three women, police and hospital officials said.

In a statement, the American military said the driver was traveling on a street restricted to cars, and failed to heed a warning shot. The U.S. statement said only two people were killed and four wounded. A manager at Rasheed bank also said the shooting claimed two lives.

The dead and injured were taken to Kindi Hospital, hospital officials said. The police and hospital officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to release information about the shooting.

During a U.S. operation Monday against al-Qaida in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, American troops shot at a vehicle speeding toward a roadblock after firing warning shots, the U.S. military said in a separate statement. Two men in the vehicle were killed immediately, and a child traveling with them died later of his wounds.

"We regret that civilians are hurt or killed while Coalition forces work diligently to rid this country of the terrorist networks that threaten the security of Iraq and our forces," Cmdr. Ed Buclatin, a U.S. spokesman, said in the statement.

The Shaab neighborhood in northern Baghdad where Tuesday's shooting took place is the same district where masked gunmen on Sunday killed 11 relatives of a journalist critical of the Iraqi government, according to colleagues and the media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf, however, denied the Sunday killings had taken place. "The killing of the 11 family members did not take place and that is totally confirmed," he told The Associated Press Tuesday.

In Amman, in neighboring Jordan, the journalist challenged the Iraqi government's account and accused the Interior Ministry forces of involvement in the deaths. Dhia al-Kawaz said they raided a wake in Iraq for his slain family Tuesday in the predominantly Shiite city of Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, tearing down banners commemorating the dead.