Police Captain Laith Mohammed said the attack near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, involved US warplanes and armor that flattened a house in the village of Isahaqi. An Associated Press reporter at the scene said the roof of the house had collapsed, three cars were destroyed, and two cows were killed.
Relatives said the 11 victims were wrapped in blankets and driven in three pickup trucks to the Tikrit General Hospital, about 45 miles to the north.
AP photographs showed the bodies of two men, five children, and four other covered figures arriving at the hospital accompanied by grief-stricken relatives. The victims were covered in dust, with bits of rubble tangled in their hair.
Riyadh Majid, who identified himself as the nephew of Faez Khalaf, the head of the household who was killed, said in an interview at the hospital that US forces landed in helicopters and raided the home early yesterday.
Khalaf's brother, Ahmed, said nine of the victims were family members who lived at the house and two were visitors.
''The dead family was not part of the resistance, they were women and children," he said. ''The Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only death."
The US military said they caught the target of the raid, a man suspected of supporting foreign fighters of the Al Qaeda in Iraq terror network.
On the eve of the first session of Iraq's new parliament and within days of the third anniversary of the US-led invasion, vehicles were banned from Baghdad's streets to prevent car bombings. Politicians reported a stalemate over the next government.
The US military dispatched a battalion of soldiers from the Second Brigade, First Armored Division -- about 700 troops -- to Iraq from its base in Kuwait to provide extra security for Shi'ite holy cities as tens of thousands of pilgrims converged for a major religious commemoration that came under attack in the two previous years.
Monday marks the end of the 40-day mourning period after the death of Imam Hussein in 680 A.D. He was the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed and was killed in Karbala.
