The strike north of the capital happened in the early hours of the morning in the city of Baquba, the military said in a statement.
"Coalition forces killed four suspected terrorists and wounded two others during a raid ... targeting a terrorist tied to extremist leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq in ... Diyala and Salaheddin provinces," it said.
In the course of the raid, US forces came under heavy fire and aircraft "fired multiple rounds" to neutralize the threat, it said.
"Upon a search of the objective buildings ... they also found four women killed and another wounded as a result of the airstrike."
"Coalition forces strive to mitigate risks to civilians while in pursuit of terrorists," the statement said.
Inhabitants of the area, known as the Mufraq neighborhood, said that at least seven of the dead belonged to the same family and that all were from the Sunni Beni Zeid tribe.
"We heard heavy gunfire, we tried to get out of the area but then we saw hummers in the neighborhood shooting randomly," said one neighbor referring to the armored Humvees used by US forces.
The hardline Sunni Muslim Scholars Association condemned the attack vociferously saying "it brings to mind the terrible massacres of Fallujah, Haditha, Ishaqi, and Mahmudiyah," referring to various previous incidents involving coalition forces and civilian deaths. "We ask the government to expose the fascist methods the occupation uses to deal with Iraqis," added the statement.
Elsewhere in Diyala province, a roadside bomb exploded next to a police convoy transporting prisoners from Khalis to Baquba, killing two policemen and two prisoners.
Gunmen on that same highway opened fire in a separate incident and killed two other civilians, police said, adding that they also found a body floating in the Diyala River.
Diyala is one of the most violent provinces in Iraq and several major figures in Al Qaeda have been killed or captured there. The area has also witnessed a great deal of sectarian bloodshed between Sunni and Shiite armed groups.
The Iraqi army's Fifth Division stationed in Diyala announced that it had released 120 detainees to mark the occasion of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, while capturing a leading figure in the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution.
On Sunday the Iraqi military announced the arrest of another leading figure in the group.
In the northern oil city of Kirkuk, gunmen opened fire on a military checkpoint outside the city killing an officer and wounding three soldiers, police said. Another officer was gunned down inside the city.
Mortars falling on the central city of Samarra around midnight killed a 14-year-old boy.
In Baghdad, meanwhile, a bomb placed inside the car of Major Mijbal Abbas, part of the investigative crime unit, exploded on a bridge in the city center, killing him as he drove to work.
A pair of bombs also exploded in the middle-class neighborhood of Karrada not far from the French embassy and the offices of a number of foreign news agencies, killing one person and injuring three.
South of Baghdad, in Kut, gunmen opened fire on cars passing by on the main street, killing one person and injuring three.
In and around the capital, some 12 corpses also turned up, mostly in the river near the village of Suweira, south of the capital.
© 2006 Agence France-Presse
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