"The forces searched the houses and ordered the people to leave," said Brigadier General Nadhim Sharif of the Iraqi army. "They separated men from the women and children and then they shot at the men, killing 13 immediately and two others a little later."The mayor of the nearby town of Mandali, Abdul Hussein Murad, confirmed Sharif's report that 15 men had been killed and added that a woman was also among the victims, bringing the death toll to 16.
Meanwhile, in Baghdad, a suicide bomb blew up a vehicle against an Iraqi army checkpoint in the Sunni-dominated west of the city, killing two soldiers and wounding four, security sources said.
Another car bomb went off further south, killing four people and wounding eight.
Elsewhere in the city, insurgents clashed with police, killing one person and wounding another and two government employees were killed in separate attacks.
The first, a bodyguard for an industry ministry official, was killed when a Katyusha rocket slammed into the official's home near the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses several government ministries. Another man, employed by the foreign ministry, was shot dead by insurgents.
Baghdad authorities also recovered 20 corpses from the city's streets, some, of which showed signs of torture. Eight more American troops were killed In Iraq, seven of them on a single day, the US military said Saturday, amid raging violence and a desperate search for three captured soldiers.
Another soldier died in combat in western Iraq, one was shot dead while on foot patrol in Baghdad and the eighth was killed on Saturday by a roadside bomb south of the capital that wounded two US and two Iraqi troops. Britain's Tony Blair, on his last visit to Iraq as Prime Minister, said he had no regrets about his part in the US-led invasion that removed Saddam Hussein.
On a farewell trip to a country whose future may define his legacy after a decade in power, Blair met Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani and discussed the situation in Iraq, which is beset by sectarian violence. "I have no regrets about removing Saddam, no," Blair told a joint news conference with Maliki and Talabani after their talks about how to bring about greater political reconciliation.
"The future of Iraq should be determined by Iraqis in accordance with their wishes and it is important that all the neighbouring countries understand and respect that," he said. "There are mortar attacks and terrorist attacks happening every day. We don't give in to them," Blair said.