U.S. air strike hits volatile Iraqi city

DIWANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. forces launched an air strike in Diwaniya on Saturday as U.S. and Iraqi troops fought for a second day to overcome Shi'ite militias and bring the city back under government control.

A local hospital source and a resident said six people, including two children and a woman, were killed in the missile strike on a home in the centre of the city, 110 miles south of Baghdad.

U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Scott Bleichwehl said one person had been killed when a warplane fired on gunmen carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

"The engagement was initiated by a tip that was called in by a local citizen. We had visual confirmation that there was a hostile target. There was no collateral damage," he said.

Iraqi and U.S. forces launched Operation Black Eagle at dawn on Friday to restore the government's authority over a city where Shi'ite militias are a powerful and feared presence, particularly Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, which the Pentagon says is the greatest threat to peace in Iraq.

The government said this week it was extending the nearly two-month-old U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in Baghdad to other cities as it seeks to halt a slide into sectarian civil war.

Diwaniya has been the scene of fierce battles between U.S. and Iraqi forces and militiamen in past months. Forty people were killed in street battles in October.

Thirteen Iraqi soldiers were summarily executed when they ran out of ammunition and were captured during a firefight with Shi'ite militiamen in the city last August. The incident prompted questions about the capabilities of the new Iraqi army.

TWO US SOLDIERS KILLED