According to reports by Al Jazeera and the Associated Press, air strikes in the villages of Al-Bu Ubaid and Al-Bu Faraj near the Iraqi city of Ramadi have killed “at least” 39 Iraqi civilians according to Iraqi witnesses. The attacks were apparently in retaliation for the killing of five US soldiers in Al-Bu Ubaid on Saturday, as the US military has claimed that it killed twenty “terrorists” that were attempting to set off another roadside bomb near the wreckage of the aforementioned vehicle, although witnesses report that the air strike killed 25 civilians that gathered to examine the wreckage. The attack in Al-Bu Faraj came after a crowd allegedly fired on a US helicopter at which point the helicopter returned fire and called in an F/A-18 that bombed a building, killing at least 14 civilians according to witnesses. The military is claiming that the attacks killed 70 “terrorists” and that there were “no reports of Coalition or civilian casualties.”

Thus far the invasion and occupation of Iraq has caused the deaths of between 26,568 and 29,922 Iraqi civilians according to the website Iraq Body Count and as many as 39,000 and 100,000 in other studies.